Reveries of the Solitary Walker

There are some people, like that, who, upon reaching a certain age and until death take them away turn bitter, grumpy, always morose, never happy, and constantly complain about everything they can. Rousseau, here, outsmarted them all: he left his jeremiads to posterity.

Of an pretentious vanity, annoying, self-centred and portraying himself as a martyr persecuted by his contemporaries, almost paranoid, the grumpy old man here wobbles in self-pity, moans and whines.

I get it. Honestly, I do. Here are the musings of a man reaching the end of his life, and daring to be honest and confront it all, blah blah blah... It could have been interesting (maybe). The problem is that Rousseau is nothing but a miserable old grump. I am sorry, but, show more here's nothing but the 18th century version of some tart celebrity sobbing their life away on a vain TV talk show. How shallow!

Honestly: stick to his philosophical work. show less

I doubt that there's ever been another exhibit in case studies of clinical paranoia that was written so well as this. Rousseau had a pleasing gift for the fresh & powerful turn of phrase and for conveying in his writing a sincerity so naked as to be child-like but a poisoned one for finding coded references to himself in newspapers, veiled threats to himself in lolling villagers, and an inexplicable malignity focussed upon himself in, well, pretty much everyone.

Well worth reading. For the writing, for the close encounter with mental illness, for the charming survival tip: If an angry Great Dane hurtles toward you, time its speed so that you may jump over it. (Moreover, if you too were required to read Hume in school this book might make show more you feel sympathetic with rather than resentful toward him.) show less

Hyperbole*, thy name is Rousseau. In the last work by Jean-Jacques Rousseau he created a memoir like none of his other works. Autobiographical in style, it differs from the Confessions, the Dialogues, and several letters. It has no goal nor any chronological order; indeed, the ten "walks" into which it is divided provide a record of his inner feelings, a sort of barometer of his "soul".

The theme of the walks, if one exists, seems to center on Rousseau's alleged solitude - an isolation from society that is not deserved by such a great man. He spends his days contemplating himself as evidenced by this comment near the end of the First Walk: "But I, detached from them and from everything, what am I?".
His investigation of himself, as the show more walks continue, appears to be sentimental - one that focuses on feeling rather than ideas (perhaps his taste for ideas had declined since the days of his early essays and great Social Contract). He ponders the nature of happiness in the Fifth Walk, however does not identify his own personal happiness with contemplation (as Aristotle or other classical thinkers might). In fact, he considers thinking a chore for him in the Seventh Walk; it is a task he used to perform fro the sake of others so that he could explain the world to them and show them how to live in it correctly (perhaps they could not hear him or were just not listening).

Rousseau's high appreciation of himself is evident from the opening sentence of the First Walk when he sets himself apart from humankind with these words: "I am now alone on earth, no longer having any brother, neighbor, friend, or society other than myself." He goes on to portray himself as the "most sociable and the most loving of humans". Overall the investigation of self in which he is engaged is so clearly and consistently directed at Rousseau's own enlightenment that the problem of why he is in this unusual condition does not arise. The final and tenth walk occurs on on Palm Sunday in 1778. He ends his reveries with a short chapter bemoaning the short period of happiness he had with a woman decades before; unsure of himself or his feelings he commits to reforming so as to be able to love. It seems that will be a losing battle.

* language that describes something as better or worse than it really is. show less

I actually enjoyed Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Reveries of the Solitary Walker" much more than I expected to. I found Rousseau's 10 essays interesting and occasionally unintentionally amusing in a sad sort of way.

Rousseau would have been insane in this Internet age where every comment about a person's work, behavior or looks can be seen, dissected and analyzed. Rousseau, writing in the late 1700's in France was utterly paranoid and convinced that there were haters out there at every turn.

Still, I found his essays thoughtful and very easily translatable to today's world. His anecdotes were interesting enough that I'll likely put his more formidable "Confessions" on my reading list.

Lorsqu'il commence à écrire les Rêveries à l'automne 1776, Rousseau est un vieil homme proche de la mort, presque pauvre, célèbre dans toute l'Europe et pourtant assuré que l'espèce humaine le rejette. II continue cependant d'écrire et les Rêveries sont à ses yeux la suite des Confessions. Mais il ne s'agit plus désormais de raconter sa vie ni de s'expliquer aux autres pour dévoiler sa vraie nature. Les souvenirs épars qui remontent maintenant à sa mémoire, c'est pour lui-même qu'il les consigne dans une prose souvent admirablement poétique.

Sad ending to a life obsessed too much with what others thought of him, or perhaps his own obsession with fame and being loved. Hard to say. I wish he would have walked quietly off into the sunset for five years and then died. It would have said more than this work did.

Well, this sounded really good from the description: slightly crazy Rousseau at the end of his life, walking, thinking, bitterness, misanthropy, etc.

However, in practice, it was like listening to that drunk guy at the bar telling you how everybody is against him, and how he really deserves better, and how he's really a great guy and that he's not really mad at these people (he calls them his 'persecuters')... no, in fact he's found peace. But he emphasizes those last points a little too pointedly, so that you start to think he doesn't really believe it. Like he's just saying it to convince himself that it's true. Because, really, he's not over the fact that certain people don't like him. And you end up not caring if he's really a good show more guy or not, you just want him to stop talking so you can enjoy your beer.

While there are some good ideas and thoughts in here, none of them really blew me away, they all seemed like stuff I would write down in my own diary, only to look back on them and feel a slight twinge of shame. And there's not the meandering quality I would associate normally with a walking narrative. These are ten well-formed essays, with forceful agendas. He didn't stop to tell you about his walk, or about something he observed at the corner of Rue Such-and-such and Avenue de So-and-So. No, none of that, it's all Rousseau all the time. He is so much in his own mind that I felt like I was reading a case-study in how not to drive yourself crazy. I see these tendencies in myself sometimes and I hope I don't ever become like him.

Reduced to my own self, it is true that I feed on my own substance.

And while the writing is not bad, he repeats his points to the point of tedium, and takes so long in saying it, that I fell asleep reading a few of them.

PS - the Introduction, written by the translator Peter France, is pretty good though, and gives a good context of how these writings fit into Rousseau's larger body of work. I do want to read more of Rousseau, he was probably a great thinker before he turned sour and inward. show less