Reviews

William H. Pritchard, Amherst Magazine

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Todd…has taken as his subject nothing less than a nearly impossible one. How do you write about “The Search for Authenticity” without producing either theoretical big talk or cultural bromides? No one will read this book and not think at one point or another of Thoreau, and Todd reminds us that “Thoreau was always more complicated than the aphorisms we mine him for.” This could be said about Todd’s writing as well; more specifically, about the way his sentences continually resist the banal—the homely-complacent feel of things with which an inferior writer might be content. Todd always keeps you on your toes, pushing in a direction you hadn’t quite foreseen his argument taking. In fact, the book doesn’t have an “argument” (does Walden?) but is rather a series of forays or essays (assayings) about how the things of this world exert their grip on our imaginations.

—William H. Pritchard, Amherst Magazine