How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an… (original 2010; edition 2011)

A lively and interesting history of Montaigne (the man), his legacy, and his ideas. If Blakewell seems to infuse her opinion, it makes the whole thing just that more Montaignian. Plus, it is one of my all time favorite book titles. Plenty to enjoy, plenty to learn, plenty to love. Also, an excellent advertisement for Montaigne's Essays ( )

Okay NE: sold.

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I told my husband, apparently too enthusiastically, that I was reading a fascinating biography. He took the bait and I told him I was reading How To Live by Sarah Bakewell, a biography of Michel de Montaigne, the man credited with creating the essay form. My husband looked at me strangely and said ‘Don’t tell people, please.’

It hadn’t occurred to me that the subject matter sounded boring. This book is far from boring. It is one of the best biographies I’ve read. Bakewell writes beautifully, it’s well-researched and she’s obviously passionate about her subject. Though all of this helps, that’s not what clinched it for me.

The structure of the book is by far its best asset. The subtitle to this book is ‘A life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer‘.

Bakewell explains the essay form:

This idea – writing about oneself to create a mirror in which other people recognise their own humanity – has not existed for ever. It had to be invented.
Montaigne penned 107 essays, writing about his experiences and thoughts. He used these experiences to ask himself questions, the big one being ‘How to live?’ He delves into how to cope with the fear of death, how to make the most of life, and the smaller dilemmas like how to cheer up a neighbour. What was innovative with Montaigne’s writing was that he ‘tells us what he did in each case, and what it felt like when he was doing it.’

The book is divided into 20 answers with the same question: How to live? Answer: Don’t worry about death, Pay Attention, Be born…

Bakewell explains:

The question remains the same throughout, but the chapters take the form of twenty different answers – each an answer that Montaigne might be imagined as having given. In reality, he usually responded to questions with flurries of further questions and a profusion of anecdotes, often all pointing in different directions and leading to contradictory conclusions. The questions and stories were his answers, or further ways of trying the question out.
I have Montaigne’s essays sitting on my bookshelf waiting patiently to be read. And I’m looking forward to it. ( )

This is the type of book that brings one closer to humanizing the very old past. It’s pleasing to know that someone was so enlightened and revered so far back in time, but it’s not pleasing that though his work has lasted so long, we are still trudging along and making the same mistakes. I guess it is silly to think that one open-minded thinker should change the mindset of so many when one considers the readers and heeders of other revolutionary texts of the world. But, I will judge this for myself when I start reading The Complete Essays for myself. ( )

I can't decide whether the fact that I wish I'd just read Montaigne's Essays instead of Bakewell's book is a criticism or an endorsement. The author certainly presents an enlighteing view of the essayist, explicating not only his writing, but also his personal life and the context of the historical events through which he lived. Even the structure of the book, elaborating on twenty possible Montaigne-ian answers to the question of how we should live, manages to be both engaging and appropriate to the man himself.

Yet at the same time, I found myself slightly annoyed with the book. The twenty answers she chooses can seem excessively vague, little more than excuses to write about various biographical details of Montaigne's life. The digressions into French political history and the cultural response to his writing, although clearly pertinent to her subject matter, frequently seemed like little more than distractions.

I don't want to sound too critical, because I do think that the author does a wonderfully informative job of describing a subject I find quite captivating. This is really just another situation in which I have once again set my expectations too high, having judged the book by its overly-long title. I suspect my appreciation for her work would be much greater if I had approached it as merely preparatory material for reading Montaigne myself, rather than as direct access to some mysterious font of wisdom. ( )