Sarah Bakewell's book on Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) is worthwhile in large part because Montaigne is not as widely read as he deserves to be; her work may help redress that situation. Wisely, she gives readers to understand that they may see themselves in Montaigne's Essays: She understands the narcissism that pervades our culture. It is fascinating - and rather suggestive - that so many people claim to see themselves in the writings of a thoroughgoing skeptic.
Her theme is "how to live" - a subject on which Montaigne is full of insights, though he never presumes to offer advice. In 20 chapters, Ms. Bakewell explores approaches to life derived from Montaigne, such as "Be ordinary and imperfect," "See the world," "Guard your humanity," "Wake from the sleep of habit," "Let life be its own answer," and perhaps most characteristically for Montaigne, "Question everything." If this smacks of the self-help book, don't be deceived. Montaigne is talking about his life, not yours. If you look in his Essays for tips on living, you will not be alone, though his purpose is to describe, not prescribe.
I will not attempt a discussion of Montaigne's Essays here. They have been well reviewed elsewhere. Suffice it to say that he was a learned and yet highly sympathetic member of the French nobility and man of affairs who gave up his public life and duties to think, read, and write. He is the author of insightful, often delightful, essays on all kinds of things - even cannibals.
Ms. Bakewell is more than a casual student of Montaigne and her lively study is more than just a history of his collection of essays. She offers a clear-eyed though necessarily incomplete view of Montaigne's personality, to the extent it can be made out from this remove. She also spends substantial time on Montaigne's experiences with death, for instance, and this may be valuable to modern readers, many of whom, I suspect, would just as soon avoid that subject altogether. Ms. Bakewell brushes in some of the intellectual, historical, religious, and political background and context with which Montaigne was familiar, as by commenting on Stoicism, Epicureanism and Skepticism, e.g. The reader thereby gets a better understanding of the skeptical tradition to which Montaigne was a major contributor. Finally, there are numerous useful and interesting illustrations, even if they are not generally of the best quality. There's even a picture of a bottle of wine made at the estates near Bordeaux over which Montaigne presided. Oenophiles will note the connection between Chateau d' Yquem, where a spectacular sweet wine is made, and a branch of Montaigne's family from which one of his names originated: Eyquem.
I had hoped for a more substantial discussion of Montaigne's longest and perhaps most important essay, "A Defense of Raymond Sebond," also called "An Apology for Raymond Sebond." It is a somewhat confusing piece for a lay reader to confront. Ms. Bakewell gives it short shrift. And although she relies exclusively on the Frame translation, which is excellent, as long as she was preparing a book on Montaigne for the modern reader, she might have commented on other translations, such as the Screech translation, to give us an idea of their respective strengths and weaknesses. (N.B: I find that Gore Vidal wrote an excellent essay on Montaigne and briefly compared the Frame and Screech translations. The essay was originally published in the Times Literary Supplement of June 26, 1992. It has been reprinted in The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal, Jay Parini, Ed., Vintage paperback 2009.)
I do disagree with another reviewer's somewhat breezy conclusion that Montaigne is "scatter-brained." Montaigne was one of the first exponents of the so-called stream of consciousness and of course part of what makes him so engaging is following that stream around bends, over rapids and through deep pools. Montaigne would scarcely be considered the father of the essay, let alone one of the great writers of the western tradition, if he were merely scatter-brained. Much more recent writers, notably Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, made use of the stream of consciousness. They are not normally accused of being scatter-brained.
Incidentally, it is becoming more common for scholars who want to appeal to a broad audience to put notes at the end of the book, listed by page number, without printing the corresponding numbers in the text. I do not agree that the notes are therefore useless. This practice simultaneously meets the needs of students and scholars, who want the notes, and of general readers who hate being distracted by them. William Lee Miller, a distinguished historian at the University of Virginia, handles his notes in the same way in his excellent study of Lincoln, "President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman."
