During the hour drive from my home to the Cape, I fantasized that I’d replicate the peace and higher perspective Henry had documented in that seam of land and sea. “The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground,” he wrote, “a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.” I didn’t expect sublime perspective; I hoped only for a respite from my nightmares, for the waves and wind and weather to reshape the masses of my subconscious as they had shifted the dunes of Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. Isn’t this always the hope, heading out for a long walk? That in your aloneness the landscape will relieve you? That your mind will be renewed, calmed?
We learn early in Six Walks that after suffering a devastating breakup — that caused him anxiety, insomnia, and nightmares — author Ben Shattuck reached for some of the writings of Henry David Thoreau, and living in the same general area as that famed naturalist had, Shattuck decided to retrace one of Thoreau’s walks and see what became of it. This led to another and another long walk, and for the first half of this book, it was moving and poignant to watch as Shattuck reconnected to himself as he considered the changing landscape around him and sent feelers back in time to discover what kind of man Thoreau must have been. This was very satisfying as a work of naturalism, literary criticism, and self-discovery memoir. The second half of the book sees Shattuck returning a couple of years later to the project of retracing Thoreau’s paths — while in a COVID lockdown with the love of his life — and although the thinking and writing are still of the highest order, it’s not quite as affecting without the pain. Still, this is a mashup of my favourite types of nonfiction writing — the nature writing, the literary callbacks, the thoughtful self-examination — and as a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Shattuck is certainly a polished wordsmith and Six Walks is finely crafted and relatable. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Henry had walked to Wachusett, sat up on the summit and looked at the stars as if they were “given for a consolation” six months after his brother died. Was he doing the same thing I was doing? Walking to husk the dead skin of grief? Looking up to feel the comfort of one’s own smallness in the world, to displace bulging selfhood, under the shadow of such urgent beauty as the night sky?
Six Walks is only lightly confessional — we learn much more about Thoreau’s history than Shattuck’s, and that was fine with me — but it is interesting to read what a person today might find along these increasingly less isolated pathways: the parking lot atop what was once a remote summit; the unexpected kindness of strangers; the brass plaques that confirm one is, indeed, standing in Thoreau’s footprints. And again, Shattuck’s writing style is lovely:
If spring is the season for the eyes —“Earth laughs in flowers,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson — and summer for touch — of the sun, of bare feet, of seawater on your skin — then fall is mostly for the nose: the bass-note scent of the ground. To walk through a forest in New England’s autumn is to put your nose to nature’s neck.
But again, the second half of this project isn’t quite as compelling as the first (it almost feels as though, during lockdown, Shattuck thought, “If I go on a few more walks, these old notes and sketches might make a book.”) In one later chapter, Shattuck decides to head off from his home in a southwest direction (because that is what Thoreau proposes in his essay “Walking” when one has no particular destination in mind), knowing that it will eventually bring him to Rhode Island and the summer property that his great-great-grandparents had enjoyed (long since sold out of the family). Shattuck has some ordinary experiences along the way, takes the opportunity to relate some of his family’s history (which was interesting), and when he arrives at the oceanside mansion, he realises that the house had been completely rebuilt at some point: Everything, even the landscaping, was different. I suddenly felt foolish, making a pilgrimage to something that wasn’t there anymore. And that was simply not as overall interesting to me as a person’s efforts to “husk off the dead skin of grief”. Still, Shattuck’s conclusions are worth arriving at:
Reflecting here, I think I understand something more of why Henry journaled, and why there is so much good writing in it, so little lazy writing, so many elaborate metaphors and full sentences. Writing is willing permanence. If I remembered what John had said about becoming a father, I would return to it here, I would feel the sensation of his words here again, and so make it permanent. I would not live it again — the sound of John’s voice under the gloaming sky, the satisfaction of arriving in deep territory after days of lighter talk — but I would be able to replicate and hold some of the sensation. I could refill myself with that sensation, as you might hold a water glass under a tap. Writing is the glass, I see.
I suppose I should stress again that this is not primarily a memoir — I learned more about Shattuck’s life from the author bio at the end than I did in the body of the book — but what is here is for the most part interesting and consistently well-written; a satisfying journey of literary self-discovery that I enjoyed retracing with the author.
