My French Life™ BOOK CLUB - A Summer with Montaigne: Montaigne and our Modernity

[Jacqueline]

Tomi Kent Smith Am halfway through and in ways, amazed at how contemporary his thoughts and comments are. Several apply today especially in the 2019s in my country, the US
Elisabeth Sauvage-Callaghan
- I read Antoine Compagnon's "A Summer with Montaigne" - in French, actually. I also listened to a few of the accompanying podcasts, finding them even more fascinating than the book. Even though I have a doctoral degree in French literature, I am not a Renaissance expert and never took a course on Montaigne. So, I know his Essays only very cursorily.
- Found this in Book 2, Chapter 1 of the Essays - which is what I was talking about here:
"If I speak variously of myself, it is because I consider myself variously; all the contrariety is there to be found in one corner or another; after one fashion or another: bashful, insolent; chaste, lustful; prating, silent; laborious, delicate; ingenious, heavy; melancholic, pleasant; lying, true; knowing, ignorant; liberal, covetous, and prodigal: I find all this in myself, more or less, according as I turn myself about; and whoever will sift himself to the bottom, will find in himself, and even in his own judgment, this volubility and discordance. I have nothing to say of myself entirely, simply, and solidly without mixture and confusion."
I remember being absolutely fascinated by this passage. And loved it.
Jacqueline Dubois This is a wonderful passage indeed, this ability to self analyze, and the very definition in fact of what it is to be human.
Elisabeth Sauvage-Callaghan
I was not quite aware, actually, of all the trials and tribulations that Montaigne had to go through in his political (i.e. "public" life) - the religious wars and also the plague that struck Bordeaux when he was the mayor of the city.
What always strikes me the most about Montaigne is how he constantly describes his personality as incredibly contradictory and fluid. I remember that, when I was in graduate school, the professor who was the Renaissance specialist used to say that this was a trait typical of Mannerism or of the Baroque era.
Jacqueline Dubois Many modern debaters should follow in his footsteps and learn from the art of conversation, of nuances, of accepting contradictory arguments. Antoine Compagnon wanted to show us how modern this man from the 16th century was and he succeeded in this

[Jacqueline]

Keith Van Sickle One thing I have found that the French are very good at is this art of débat, the ability to disagree without being disagreeable. Too often in the US I see disagreements of ideas quickly turn personal. In France, this seems to happen much less often, with disagreements staying at the level of ideas. I remember one dinnertime debate among my French friends that got very heated and then eventually...ended. Everyone had said their piece, they had argued and listened and sometimes changed their minds, and then it was over. "Who's ready for dessert?" said our host, and we were on to the next topic..