Gallivanting With Montaigne And Reading Deeply Hill Of Books

“Gallivant” is my word for the week. It means “roaming about in search of pleasure, and that describes my general approach to self-education, but it’s moderated by my determination to read deeply. Deep reading is a habit worth fostering. It’s defined in Wikipedia as “the intentional reduction in the speed of reading, carried out to increase comprehension or pleasure.” Grammar.About.com says “The term ‘deep reading’ was coined by Sven Birkerts in ‘The Gutenberg... We are free to indulge our subjective associative impulse; the term I coin for this is “deep reading”: the slow and meditative possession of a book.’” Deep reading’s naturally appealing since I’ve always been a plodding reader.

Years in front of library and office computer terminals made it increasingly difficult to really get into thought-provoking books without my mind skipping all around. All that computer-gazing re-wired my mind to focus more on skimming and identifying than comprehending. Gradually I’d get back in the flow of reading critically and thoughtfully, while still enjoying where the author was taking my imagination, but it took persistence. This was alarming, and to counteract it I turned to the guy known as “the sanest man ever,” creator of “the best prose ever,” and who was described by hyper-cynical and critical Ambrose Bierce... Montaigne had a fascinating life, but many reference sources’ descriptions are way too dry. Better than most is the Gale Online Encyclopedia, available through your public library’s website: “The inventor of the essay form as a literary genre, Montaigne raised introspection to the level of art in his...

“Don’t judge books by their covers” was never truer, as a glance at the table of contents reveals. The first eleven essays include Montaigne’s thoughts on cannibals, war-horses, age, drunkenness, and thumbs.” Reading Sarah Bakewell’s excellent biography, , “How to Live, Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts... The other day I read essay number 39, “On the custom of wearing clothes,” translated by M.A. Screech. There are several good translations of Montaigne, but Screech’s modern interpretation makes him my favorite. In this instance Screech noted that Montaigne “makes a pun on the French taste for ‘bigarures,’ which means … both a medley of ‘sundry colours mingled together’ and a discourse ‘running oddly and fantastically,...

Many extol the virtues of reading, but few teach you how to read effectively. Reading challenges abound online where quantity is the measure of success. Read-a-book-a-week challenges. Read a hundred books a year! But where are the calls for the most rewarding style of reading of all – deep reading? This is because they fall prey to thinking quantity the best measure of one’s erudition.

There cannot be complex thinking without reading. Ancient Greek philosophers established the basis of civilization in great part because of their ability to write cogently and build on the knowledge accumulated by their predecessors. Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) spent thousands of hours reading, especially works by authors from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. He read them in their original Latin, or in Latin translations from Greek. The reason why Montaigne knew many quotations by heart is because he had read those old books over and over again. He was particularly fond of Plutarch (46-120 AD) as a source of historical anecdotes, and of Seneca (4 BC-65 AD) and Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) as sources of ethical insights.

Why is reading important? Montaigne gives strong reasons in favour of reading as a method for acquiring knowledge and developing one’s thinking abilities. I agree with Montaigne that conversation and observation could also deliver those benefits, but far more slowly. Reading is the quintessential accelerator of learning and wisdom. Posted on October 26, 2024October 26, 2024 I’m a big fan of Michel de Montaigne.

To my knowledge, he was the first one to write personal essays. From 1533 to 1597, Montaigne lived in Southern France near Bordeaux writing about his experiences with friendship, death, and even his failures and frustrations in the bedroom. While he was the first to do this, that doesn’t make him special. Many people write about these topics, especially today with millions of blogs and social posts churning out content. What makes Montaigne special? What can someone from the 16th century hope to teach someone in 2024 about living well?

His essays were not polished to make him look respectable, massage his ego, or honor his memory. Nope, Montaigne laid bare all the details. He wrote, not for posterity but for understanding. He wanted to learn how to be more human. “Gallivant” is my word for the week. It means “roaming about in search of pleasure, and that describes my general … Continue reading

Category: biography, reading well, writing well | Tags: bakewell, biography, deep reading, essay, gallivant, Lapham's, reading well One of our culture’s great sources of serendipity, Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable,” defines “serendipity “ as “a happy … Continue reading Category: authors, books, research | Tags: bakewell, biographies, books, chadwick, chaucer, curiosity, john folio, laurence sterne, libraries, montaigne, public libraries, serendipity, susan stitham, tuchman, walpole Due to their heterogeneous subjects, the essays of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) cannot be easily summarised in quotes and one-liners. Nevertheless, I am going to present here the quotes that I consider most relevant for conveying Montaigne’s key messages. Montaigne’s essays constitute the output of twenty years of quiet labour.

Amidst religious wars, political strife, famine and pestilence, Montaigne stayed loyal to his daily habits. He didn’t allow anyone or anything to disrupt his reading and writing. To those who are learning to appreciate Montaigne, I advise you to read his essay titled “On Books.” Literary historians have established that Montaigne was already fifty years old when he wrote it. In a way, he conceived this essay as a summary of the insights he had accumulated through the years. When did Montaigne mean when he wrote that “I do not measure my wisdom by the number of books in my library, but by their practical use.” In today’s terms, his library was not very large.

It must have consisted of about one hundred volumes; that’s a small fraction of the number of books we can store nowadays in the memory of a tablet or smart phone. Details and explanations are worthless to people who lack understanding. Philosophy is inaccessible to individuals devoid of curiosity. Personal growth cannot be cultivated in apathetic, barren soil. Before quitting his job and retiring to live in the countryside, Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) had witnessed outrageous displays of prejudice and irrationality. Widespread violence had driven him close to losing all hope for humanity.

Luckily, he opted for taking a step back and examining the situation. Montaigne’s conclusions are spread all over his essays. I can summarize here one of his main conclusions: People who don’t read books tend to be narrow-minded, gullible, emotional, and prone to exaggerated reactions. Happiness goes hand in hand with rationality, serenity, and thoughtfulness, but those cannot be improvised. Neither Plato nor Aristotle are coming back to lecture the public. Today, only books open the door to philosophy, personal growth, and self-reliance, which are the pillars of happiness.

Montaigne was particularly aware of the link between self-reliance and reading. He considered the former a consequence of the latter. Sophie talks to one of the world's leading literary scholars, who co-founded a whole branch of literary studies known as "The New Historicism," before reinventing Shakespeare for new generations of readers, and then turning... Stephen Greenblatt is professor of English at Harvard University, he's a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of Will in the World, The Swerve, and a host of other acclaimed and brilliant books. Most recently he's the author of Dark Renaissance, the story of Shakespeare's rival and shadow double, Christopher Marlowe. But today he talks about the writer he turns to whenever he thinks about what makes the Renaissance so distinct a period -- the age in which Europeans truly became modern.

That writer is the great French essayist Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne is a stealth heavy-hitter, an MVP of classic literature who is now all too rarely read. To explain what makes Montaigne's influence and legacy so important, and why he's truly one of the GOATs, Sophie and Jonty have decided to bring you two companion conversations with a pair of very... Stephen Greenblatt, ed. Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation of the Essays (2014) Stephen Greenblatt, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakspeare's Greatest Rival (2025)

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2012) “His rule in reading remained the one he had learned from Ovid: Pursue pleasure. ‘If I encounter difficulties in reading,’ he wrote, ‘I do not gnaw my nails over them; I leave them there. I do nothing without gaiety.’” Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) might have been the original essayist. George Orwell before George Orwell.

Montaigne was well-read, smart, critical, and possesed a tendency to write in a personal tone—with references to and reflections on—his own thoughts and his own life. Montaigne was known as a well-born French statesman during the time of the Reformation in Europe, when Catholic and Protestants were viciously fighting one another over the “one true church.” (The strong, violent ideologies... Such were the times molding a young Montaigne. The son of a wealthy businessman, Montaigne was born on a chateau near Bordeaux (rough life) although his father did his best to keep him grounded — he forced Michel to spend some of... After a fairly rigorous education in the classics initiated by his family, a stint at boarding school, and a formal legal education, Montaigne went on to a career as a court adviser at Bordeaux... His personal essays — on topics ranging from death and the meaning of life to the cultural relativism inherent in judging Brazilian cannibals — would go on to influence every generation hence, starting with...

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