Essays

This is a difficult book to review, not because it is difficult to read or comprehend but rather because it is so exceptionally comprehensive in its topics and thoughts and ideas. In one sense it began in 1571 when Michel de Montaigne, suffering increasingly from melancholy, retired to the library tower on his estate in the Périgord, and began to write what we know now as his Essays. At the age of thirty-eight he could look out his windows to see over his estates and check if his men were shirking their work. Inscribed on the walls and beams of his tower room were about 60 maxims in Greek and Latin taken from the philosophers. He replaced and augmented them as his moods and his reading led him.

In this room Montaigne produced three show more significantly different editions of his endlessly growing essays. By his death in 1592 he had scrawled in the margins of his copy of the most recent edition a significant set of further revisions, which were printed in a modified form in 1595. Montaigne wrote on a wide range of topics -- education, cannibals, drunkenness, war-horses, repentance, thumbs -- and he wrote in a highly readable, thoroughly skeptical way. The roof-beam carvings of his "solarium" convey his general frame of mind and include sayings like these: "The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. I establish nothing. I do not understand. I halt. I examine. Breath fills a goatskin as opinion fills an hollow head. Not more this than that -- why this and not that? Have you seen a man that believes himself wise? Hope that he is a fool. Man, a vase of clay. I am Human, let nothing human be foreign to me."

The essays that he wrote defined the form of his thought while providing a window into both his mind and his life. Through his essays he has influenced writers and thinkers in every place and century since. One of my favorite examples of those he influenced is the self-taught working-man's philosopher Eric Hoffer who commented on the influence of Montaigne in his life. When on a gold-digging trip to the Sierras he took along a copy of Montaigne's essays. "We were snowed in and I read it straight through three times. I quoted it all the time. I'll bet there are still a dozen hobos in the San Joaquin Valley who can quote Montaigne." Montaigne's collected essays are worth returning to again and again to spur one's own thoughts about living and dying. I have read and enjoyed these essays over most of my adult life. With them I would also recommend those of Francis Bacon, Emerson, and Orwell, among others. show less

Montaigne comes across as a tolerant man, interested in a huge range of subjects, from cruelty, education and friendship to cannibals and the custom of wearing clothes, but he always comes back to the necessity of knowing and understanding yourself.

My favourite chapter was 'On Vehicles', in which he discussed his travel sickness (with which I can truly sympathise, being extremely prone to it myself), moving on to a discussion of why it is not a good idea for princes to be too liberal with their subjects' money, the extravagances of the Roman circuses and the barbaric behaviour of the Spanish conquistadors in the Americas, before returning to the subject of vehicles.

Now I cannot stand for long - and found it even more difficult to stand show more in my youth - either a coach, a litter, or a boat, and I detest every means of travel except a horse, either in the town or country. show less

I read a couple of the selection, the only one that I really liked or understood was 'On Friendship.' He makes some great observations on personal friendship, as opposed to romantic.

I really wanted to like him, but he just wanders here and there in most essays. I did like the quotes from Greek and Roman authors though. He is obviously highly educated.

This book is translated into what I'd call King James English, so it is all "meseemeth" and "peradventure". However, no beauty comes through in this archaic tones, as it does with the excellent quotes he gleans, such as some quotes I like from what Montaigne has compiled here:

"A Man can never take good heed, Hourly what he may shun and speed."
- Horace

"That wise man I cannot abide, That for himself cannot privde."
- Euripedes

Now Montaigne himself came to loathe the focus on learning he gave many of his middle-aged years, too. And I find his gropings and gullible repeatings and Rumsfeld-like questions for answers painful, too. I'd think any wealthy, educated man locked away in a stocked library could accomplish this level of work in show more enough years, especially allowed liberal quoting.

I respect Montaigne giving us the essay as form and the idea of collecting them as tribute to intellect, but I think his famous work overrated. show less

This is one of the books in the first year of the Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World set's reading program as advised by Mortimer Adler.
I suspect that most of the reason this book is recommended is to give the reader breadth and help them to recognise that standards and customs differ greatly from one culture to another. In short it seems meant to break the reader of provincialism and prejudice.
Though it seems open to criticism itself.
I think that Montaigne is a bit credulous and ready to believe that foreign countries are stranger than they actually are. Some of his accounts are rather difficult to believe. I think he goes in for hyperbolie.
For an alternative view of the similarities and differences of cultures show more see C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man and consider his appendix.
Though I might point out that I think he goes a bit too far in the opposite direction. I don't think that his claims about the connection between religion and morality in India, for instance are quite as accurate as he seems to think.
Also, if you are interested in expanding your mind and taking care of your predjudices you could do worse than to read Robert Heinlein's novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, which I thought from the beginning had a flavor very much like some of the essays of Montaigne. The one about people's resistence to cold seems to relate well to the endurance of the character Valentine Michael Smith in the novel.
My sweetie suggests that since it is a first year book the fact that the Essays are open to critique may be part of the point. She could be right.
Anyway, we are going to see some similarities between our own culture and the ancient Greeks that will surprise us more than some of the differences. show less

This honestly did not hold my interest. The essay on education just kept going on and on with digressions and after a while I honestly had no idea where the author was going with it or what the point was. I fail to see the appeal. This is one of those classics I can say I looked over, but that is about it.

I rarely give up on books but i did so with this one. The writing is ponderous - the self-satisfied tone unrelenting. In short - brutal.