The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne's essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you'd like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne's essays on Daily Lit.
I took a little break from my Montaigne readalong this month for no reason other than I felt I needed one. I am now picking up from where I left off.
Essays Read this Week:
1. Judgements on God's ordinances must be embarked upon with prudence
2. On feeling from pleasures at the cost of one's life
3. Fortune is often found in Reason's train
4. Something lacking in our civil administrations
5. On the custom of wearing clothing
6. On Cato the Younger
7. How we weep and laugh at the same thing
Favorite Quotations:
"The world is not so completely corrupt that we cannot find even one man who would not gladly wish to see his inherited wealth able to be used (as long as Fortune lets him enjoy it) to provide shelter for great men who are renowned for some particular achievement but who have been reduced to extreme poverty by their misfortunes; he could at least give them enough assistance that it would be unreasonable for them not be satisfied" (Something lacking in our civil administrations).
"Just because I feel that I am pledged to my individual form, I do not bind all others to it as everyone else does: I can conceive and believe that there are thousands of different ways of living and, contrary to most men, I more readily acknowledge our differences than our similarities... My one desire is that each of us should be judged apart and that conclusions about me should not be drawn from routine exempla" (On Cato the Younger).
General Thoughts:
The first essay that really grabbed my attention in this group was Something lacking in our civil administrations. Montaigne talks about an idea his father had about a place where people could report their wants and needs. Kind of like Craigslist. If someone needed a worker they would report it, and if someone needed work they would report it. Ideally these two people would be matched up. Montaigne said that men are perpetually in a state of want because they are unable to find those who are able to fulfill their needs. At the end of the essay he talks about two great scholars who died of hunger. He felt that if these two men had only come forward about their situation there would have been people willing to help them, but since they did not they died.
On the custom of wearing clothing was interesting mostly because it showed a sense of modern anthropology that put Montaigne ahead of his time. He talks about how humans probably don't need clothes because our bodies should be able to adapt to climates just like other animals. This stems from ideas about the New World and travels of Herodotus, which both include civilizations who lived in the nude. He mentions that we leave sensitive parts of our bodies, ears, nose, fingers and so on bare to the world, so why do we cover up the rest of our bodies?
The final essay I read, How we weep and laugh at the same thing was actually a little disappointing. I love the idea of conflicting emotions but I didn't feel Montaigne really pushed it. Most of his examples were about a person looking at someone else and seeing them from a different perspective. Perhaps they were happy they had won a war but realized that someday they would all lose the war between life and death. The essay was only four pages and it just didn't feel finished to me.
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