A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. Henry David Thoreau. 1849/2001. Read by Patrick Cullen. 10-1.5 hour tapes. Blackstone Audio. #2770. 0-7861-2000-2. $69.95. Vinyl; content, author notes. SA

Published at the author's expense and not very successful during his lifetime, Thoreau's first full-length work remains in print more than 150 years after its 1849 appearance. Deeply grieved by the death of his brother John, Thoreau wrote this memoir in John's honor, describing a late-summer river trip the two brothers took in 1839 in a 15-foot dory. But the book is far more than a travelogue. To be sure, there are descriptions of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire countryside, anecdotes about Yankee farmers, and lists of our "finny contemporaries"--the fish. Woven in, however, are musings on a dazzling range of topics--history, religion, philosophy, literature, ethics--and plentiful doses of poetry. Thoreau reveals his broad knowledge of the classics and of Eastern religions; he quotes Ovid in Latin, discusses the ancient Hindu laws of Manu, and freely comments on poetry from Virgil to Tennyson. Listeners should keep a pencil handy to capture the quotable quotes. Just a small selection: "All men are partially buried in the grave of custom ..." "The Dark Ages are called dark, because we are so in the dark about them ..." "The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth ..." "Who hears the fishes when they cry?"

Cullen, veteran narrator of many Blackstone books, maintains a mild, professorial tone appropriate to Thoreau's contemplations. Thoreau's 19th-century language may be challenging to some modern listeners. But much of what he has to say still rings true in our century, and his deep sense of time and nature transcends the ages.

Helen Elizabeth Woodman, Andover, NH