France, Alternative Libertaire AL #227 - Read: A. Dan and Maximilian Le Roy "Thoreau. The sublime life" (fr)

To introduce characters or more struggles through the cartoon is a welcome initiative. 
This is what Maximilien Le Roy, who is not his first attempt ( Nietzsche Make the wall the 
night freedom listens to us ...). ---- Dedicated to Henry David Thoreau, the comic begins 
immediately on the mature man, one who leaves to settle in the woods of Walden, which 
inspired his masterpiece Walden or Life in the Woods. ---- This is the Thoreau of 
voluntary simplicity, whoever rejects the worship of money, social success, technological 
progress to the death, religion (monotheistic, at least), fame or the " feigned kindness. 
" At the time of the decay and large masses against poverty and hunger in the world, his 
speech is a burning issue and is still a thinker today. ---- Some like to portray him as a 
sort of hermit illuminated, anti advocating non-violence as an absolute finality.

Instead, the authors focus on the radical environmentalist, abolitionist to help runaway 
slaves, who thought to engineer plots against the state, which will defend the militant 
John Brown, an abolitionist who also was convicted of the murders of several slave owners.

Thoreau is also the man who prepare resistance to civil government after his night in jail 
for not having paid federal taxes. A thinker can therefore not be so peaceful and harmless 
as we are willing to believe.

On the form, the designer Daniel Alexander (A. Dan) leaves much room for contemplation of 
the sublime landscapes in North America, according to the mind of the philosopher.

And as usual with Le Roy, you are entitled to a little more: the foreword of comics, but 
also the interview with Michel Granger just close the book (where you can see the cabin 
where lived Thoreau and the beautiful Walden Pond, among others).

However, we may regret - especially if the character is already known - some light at the 
scenario and a price a little high. But not enough to hide his pleasure either, so do not 
hesitate to embark with the naturalist philosopher poet who wanted to end " suck out all 
the marrow of life . "

Further questions and sterile debates - Thoreau was it libertarian? - The last word back 
to Michel Granger: " A century and a half later, in the context of a threatening 
financial crisis and the imminent expiry of an ecological crisis, its prophetic intuitions 
open our eyes to the evolution dangerous to our civilization and incentives to engage in 
alternative "

Nico (AL Lorraine)

A. Dan and Maximilian Le Roy, Thoreau. The sublime life , Lombard, 2012, 88 p., 20.50 euros.