submitted by Tim McNicholas, Toronto
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We set out to keep company with and even to make friends with Montaigne.
Our journey was guided by Don Whitfield who spoke to Montaigne every evening to be certain that our course was true (whatever truth is). Don reported that Montaigne never disagreed with him, (how charming).
While M. Montaigne was usually an agreeable new friend, we sometime, now and again, found that he could write sentences that were so long, and often moved about to embrace many different ideas, some of which were more appropriate to his time than to ours, that one might, if not careful, while always being wary of the vagaries of different translations that did not properly distinguish between disavow and gainsay, and while considering both the essence and the mood of the thoughts to be expressed, which were not thoughts that one might expect to see given the title of the essay, lead us to wonder if, when we finally arrived at the end of a sentence if anyone even vaguely remembered the subject of the sentence that began so many many words ago.
Montaigne is even capable of writing a sentence with a triple negative. We were not willing not to work through such writing lest we not understand, (I think – maybe not).
We had many words of praise for Montaigne. Succinct was not one of them. Interesting and charming were.
Still, we recommend that you keep company with Montaigne. Find a comfortable chair. Fix an appropriate adult beverage. Open the book. Open your mind. Then read. Do not feel that you will have to talk to him. He has plenty to say.
(P.s. Did I mention that he can be charming?)
