Chapter 3 Summary

In the third chapter, "Reading," which creates another paradox alongside the fourth chapter, "Sounds," Thoreau opens the discussion of, as he writes in the chapter's opening sentence, how men, can be both observes and students if they would be a little more deliberate in their choices. The implication throughout Walden is, of course, that Thoreau is both.

Thoreau discusses the nobility of "true" books. The entire chapter is an exercise in dramatic irony. Considering that he addresses a readership, he is vaguely obsequious: presumably Walden is a "true" book. His readers are thus embarking on a "noble," or refined, undertaking.

Thoreau feels that books should be read with the same deliberation and thought in which they are written. He advocates comprehension of language that surpasses a familiarity with language, and he tries to explain it by providing examples of people understanding a language...