The Year Is a Circle: A Celebration of Henry David Thoreau

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta, and
the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views
of Canada, 1880–1914.

“I love the landscape,” wrote Thoreau. Not an unexpected sentiment
from the man who wrote one of the great American nature classics,
Walden; and a sentiment that, for those who have read Thoreau’s work,
is much less superficial than it seems. Victor Friesen, a Thoreau
scholar, understands the depth of Thoreau’s love; more important, as a
very fine poet and an accomplished nature photographer, Friesen is able
to re-create the spirit of Thoreau’s love through his own poems and
photographs. The result is one of the most beautiful little books I have
ever had the pleasure of reading or viewing. As we look at— rather,
contemplate—Friesen’s magnificent photographs, which take us on a
visual tour of the four seasons, we can, with equal pleasure, enjoy his
poetic reveries, sharing his moments of serenity: “And I lay me back
this summer’s day, / With my head in the cup / Of my hands, looking up
/ From grass that is sweet, soft, and cool. / Of sky, / While I / Can
sleepily dream, / Can sleepily dream.” If you too “love the
landscape” as Thoreau did, even though you may never have heard that
love articulated in Thoreau’s words, you will also love this book. It
is indeed “a taste of the beautiful.”