Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre Malandain

Les rêveries du promeneu...

by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

book data

205 ratings, 3.65 average rating, 13 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		23%
4		33%
3		29%
2		10%
1		2%

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published

February 12th 1997 by Presses Pocket (first published 1980)

details

Poche, 390 pages

isbn

2266036823 (isbn13: 9782266036825)

description

Débranchez vos téléphones portables et relisez Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire pour redécouvrir ce que l'on doit à la solitude et au libre v…more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 427)

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Jun 12, 2008

Eddie rated it:

(review of isbn 0140443630)

bookshelves: creative-nonfiction

Revery seems to have fallen out of favor nowadays. If it's not one of ten million authorities emphasizing the need for efficiency and planned action, or modern evolutionists of all sorts (in business, in fitness, in the arts) convincing us that if what we're doing isn't in the name of advancement and improvement then it's not worth doing, or just us telling ourselves that we must keep up with everything and everyone else and so have no time to swim around in our own selves; revery has become the...more Revery seems to have fallen out of favor nowadays. If it's not one of ten million authorities emphasizing the need for efficiency and planned action, or modern evolutionists of all sorts (in business, in fitness, in the arts) convincing us that if what we're doing isn't in the name of advancement and improvement then it's not worth doing, or just us telling ourselves that we must keep up with everything and everyone else and so have no time to swim around in our own selves; revery has become the stepsister of onanism.

I suspect that first cable television and now the internet on top of it have become our objects of revery and often even do the reverying for us. Or rather TRY to do it, for these are surely only false reveries. But what does revery even mean? I have an immediate vague notion of pointless daydreaming or being "lost in thought", and I think that's pretty close; but the old style revery involved even more, it was more akin to out of body travel, soul travel, living in a waking dream. One would gaze at something and enter that something and begin to travel through one's mind. Or one would walk and through the rhythm of the walking memories and thoughts would be dislodged and multiple chains of associative reactions would occur and one would truly be lost in thought in an effectively infinite cosmos of the mind, or walk off the edge of a cliff... And revery is like walking off that cliff, becoming untethered from the daily grind and habitual patterns, like a vast unbuckling of thought moving every whichaway in a world gone loosy goosy.

Rousseau opposes revery to thought, saying that he has never been a great thinker; and by this I think he's saying that thought is the active manipulation of our mind and soul activity into intentional patterns, a directed activity with often preconceived ideas; while revery is passive, unintentional, non-conceptual.

There's a lot of self-pitying in this book, but more than that it's a book of almost heroic honesty and self-revelation and it's a thrill to read his thoughts move back and forth between rancor and venom spat out at his contemporaries while at the same time saying he hates no one, and some very moving expressions of universal good will and union with nature. It's full of stimulating contradictions which makes it just seem all the more real. And of course there are also a lot of fruitful reveries, or rather the book is the fruit of the reveries, and it's definitely an apple worth chomping into.(less)

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2 comments

Oct 03, 2009

Gilles rated it:

(review of isbn 2070361861)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his book "Reveries of a Solitary Walker" offers us a self-examination and after all his vision of the happiness. Ten "walks" are written in a sober style which gets closer to the poetry in prose. It is here, in the quiet landscape close to Paris, on the edges of a lake in the middle of the greenery or coming back to oldest memories that the philosopher discovers a new harmony between the nature and his soul. It is doubtless one of the most modern work...more

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Dec 30, 2009

Seansurfgood rated it:

(review of isbn 0140443630)

Read in December, 2009

This is perhaps Rousseau at his finest. I suspect, however, this will be lost on anyone who has not read his "confessions" and philosophy first.. I say this not only because of the frequent references, but also the emotional weight and depth of some passages (particularly the 10th walk) cannot be fully appreciated. In a word, if you are not in tears by the end of the tenth walk, then you don't know J.J. Rousseau.

So this is not a good place to be introduced to Rousseau.. In...more

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May 03, 2009

Kamilah rated it:

(review of isbn 0140443630)

And I thought my diaries were maudlin and full of self-pity.

This book is Rousseau lite, offering a quick summary of some of his major ideas about truth and man's relationships to nature and society all the while ruminating on life in (largely self-imposed) exile. At times, he was so over the top that I imagined Dave Chappelle reading some of this material aloud.

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Oct 30, 2009

Mcnorton added it (review of isbn 014600194X)

Meditations of a Solitary Walker (Penguin Classics 60s S) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1995)

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Sep 10, 2009

Alan added it (review of isbn 0140443630)

Read in August, 2009

These are thoughts of a sad genius, who was trying to cheer himself up.

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Mar 11, 2010

Caitlin rated it:

(review of isbn 0140443630)

Also known in class as Reveries of a Solitary Whiner.

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Dec 10, 2009

Mendi rated it:

(review of isbn 0140443630)

Owns a copy — Read in December, 2009

At first I was very sceptic. I'd heard some of Rousseau's ideas and I didn't feel he was really my thinker. I was happily surprised though: there were quite a few 'walks' in this book that I found very interesting, and of which I have written down a fair number of quotes.

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Aug 29, 2008

Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 0140443630)

Read in September, 2008

Rousseau's last book, he says that it is meant to be only a recording of his internal thoughts and not for publication, but it also acts in some places as a defense of his theories and a history of his persecution. An interesting and at times lyrical book.

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Feb 27, 2008

Angelo rated it:

(review of isbn 0140443630)

bookshelves: philosophy

That was one of the saddest and most beautiful books I've read. But, mind you, it is inspiring sadness, which makes you think about all the intricacies of life.

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