The Artist of Kouroo

The poor reception and sales of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers was partly due to the book's insistent, perhaps zealous, and sometimes saucy Orientalism. Even critics otherwise sympathetically disposed to Transcendentalist eccentricity were put off by Thoreau's seeming sacrilege. In contrast to other early students of Asian traditions, Thoreau mixed images of Orient and Occident with a kind of cavalier abandon, even bravado, as if to invite critical and commercial rejection. This chapter addresses the question of why he flirted with commercial disaster. Why the invitation to literary oblivion? Such questions lead directly into the heart of his spiritual and imaginative universe.