How to Live
Books | Biography & Autobiography / Philosophers
3.9
Sarah Bakewell
Winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography How to get along with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love—such questions arise in most people’s lives. They are all versions of a bigger question: how do you live? How do you do the good or honorable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy?This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Monatigne, perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them “essays,” meaning “attempts” or “tries.” Into them, he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the appalling events of the religious civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller and, over four hundred years later, Montaigne’s honesty and charm still draw people to him. Readers come in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment—and in search of themselves.This book, a spirited and singular biography, relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. It traces his bizarre upbringing, youthful career and sexual adventures, his travels, and his friendships with the scholar and poet Étienne de La Boétie and with his adopted “daughter,” Marie de Gournay. And we also meet his readers—who for centuries have found in Montaigne an inexhaustible source of answers to the haunting question, “how to live?”
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Author
Sarah Bakewell
Pages
416
Publisher
Other Press, LLC
Published Date
2010-10-19
ISBN
1590514262 9781590514269
Ratings
Google: 1
Community ReviewsSee all
"A good friend from college recommended that I give Montaigne a shot. Bakewell's delightful "How to Live" opened up a portal into Montaigne's world and that enigmatic gentleman reached across the centuries to intellectually seduce me. How? I'm not quite sure. The beauty of this book is how Bakewell lays out Montaigne's many contradictions and contextualizes them historically and philosophically. Montaigne bursts to life in these pages and Bakewell guides us on a joyful journey through his life and his thoughts. Accessibly written, well-organized, and full of strong personalities, "How to Live" is an enticing on-ramp to a further exploration of Montaigne's work.<br/><br/>Bakewell shocked me with her discussion of Montaigne's surprising influence on later creative thinkers. The Shakespeare connection astounded me - he was reading Montaigne? Montaigne's work is plagiarized in The Tempest?? And he may have been the crucial inspiration for Hamlet?! This is heady stuff. But I suppose it's plausible:<blockquote>Montaigne and Shakespeare have each been held up as the first truly modern writers, capturing that distinctive modern sense of being unsure where you belong, who you are, and what you are expected to do.</blockquote>While I enjoyed each chapter individually, I struggled to find a coherent theme in Montaigne's overall philosophy. While Bakewell left me convinced that Montaigne would be a dinner guest par excellence, I fear that I agree with some of his critics who point out:<blockquote>the Essays’ deepest philosophical failing: their “absolute absence of decision.” Other writers agreed. The chronicler Jules Lecomte dismissed Montaigne and his entire philosophy with one word: “coward!”</blockquote>But Bakewell convinced me that Montaigne is a tricky guy to pin down. Part of the fun of reading him seems to be his self-awareness about this all. As Bakewell playfully envisions:<blockquote>“Oh Lord,” one might imagine Montaigne exclaiming, “by all means let me be misunderstood.”</blockquote>Full review and highlights at <a href="http://books.max-nova.com/how-to-live/">http://books.max-nova.com/how-to-live/</a>"
Max Nova