Cape Cod

Well Written and Read....

Brenda H. Nelson

This book is well-written and is read well too, but this Thoreau sounds different from the one who wrote Walden: Life in the Woods. In Walden, he wrote spiritually of Nature. In this, he is often sardonic and critical of his fellow man. He seems to have lost his innocence and positive focus. He is amusing in his jaundiced eye, but I prefer the clear-eyed younger man. Plus he opens this book with a rather gruesome, emotionally-detached account of a shipwreck. The reader is good...modulating her tone well; and reading without rushing. However, she mispronounces an oft-used word -- Eastham. Most places-names ending in "ham" are pronounced properly as "em". But Eastham is different. It is properly pronounced East-HAM...as in a cut of pork. She also mispronouces other words...autumnal ( oncesinger, gunwale, Scylla, Elysian, etc. It jars the ear, and breaks the flow of the story. Another word she mispronounces is the author's name -- Thoreau. But then, most people do; it should be enunciated as in " thorough."