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From the list of Top 100 Works in World Literature by Norwegian Book Clubs, with the Norwegian Nobel Institute, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne, part one

10 out of 10


The under signed has started reading this ultimate chef d’oeuvre some ten years ago � or was it just five…maybe twelve…surely, there would be something in this magnum opus about…well, everything to help me clear this out, or just understand the passing of time and how it is relative, five years seem like ten, twelve or even twenty five, when looking back in anger � but the size of the task and the number of pages to turn, 1344, seemed frightening and besides, these were Days of Wine and Roses�

Alhamdulillah, there is some realignment of the stars and the craving for wisdom, the impulse � I was going to say urge, but I would be betting on a feeling to be constant and besides, it is not just such a vibrant, fervent emotion � to try and read through the Norwegian Book Clubs, Modern Library, TIME Magazine and some other prestigious lists of the best books � perhaps Le Monde should be added here and the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read � and finish were the initial reading had been stopped, perhaps even cope with Ulysses�
So far, there have been some mixed results, for The Tropic of Cancer has been more or less taken to the last page now, but the expected elation has not materialized, which is the case with the U.S.A. Trilogy so we have to see what the effect of The Essays would be, though taking cues from the first attempt and the chapters read now, it will be a joy ride, though in large part because it seems to encourage this reader to think of his own experiences�

On fear
Michel de Montaigne has some very outré, revealing, thought provoking cases to present…the men sentenced to death and their peculiar reactions, one is very worried about the itinerary to the gallows passing by the ‘boutique� of a fellow to whom he owes money, as if this is worrisome and not the passing into another dimension, if there is any other, while another is concerned about being ticklish and asking the executioner to be careful with that � now the image of queen Mary comes to mind and her gruesome decapitation, wherein the headsman misses and has to hit the body again -were there three attempts needed �

Socrates was asked ‘how do you wish to be buried� and he replied ‘as you wish�, we learn in the same chapter and indeed, we read in the dialogues about the attitude that the wisest man had towards the final exit�

Since nobody came back to tell us about what happens after death, we cannot say that we know anything about it…Socrates was declared to be the wisest man of antiquity by the respect Oracle of Delphi and the philosopher wondered why that happened and looking around, he found that almost all around pretended to know about horses, politics and all manner of topics in which they had in fact no expertise, while at the same time, he had never pretended to know what he does not know and ergo, it must be this feature, attribute, character trait that must have impressed the Oracle of Delphi to proclaim him the wisest�
He applies therefore the same principle in regards to Death, of which it would be to claim to know what one does not know if we say we fear it…how can we fear something of which we know nothing…around the infamous trial, at the end of which he would be sentenced to drink poisonous hemlock, he is informed about the verdict and the Wisest Man of Antiquity says ‘they have sentenced me to die and nature them�

Thus, Michel de Montaigne writes on the subject, on the fact that we never know when death comes � it could be in the form suggested by the best comedy group ever - and he gives the example of his own brother, who had been playing tennis, was hit by a ball near the ear and then about six hours later, he just dies from a heart attack due to the accident and in general, the suggestion seems to be that we need to be aware that this could happen and if we have the proper attitude, we will not be slaves anymore�
Then there is the message we get from reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who has had his own close encounter with death…he had been sentenced to death and faced his last three minutes on earth, in front of the firing squad and in the last moment, he is pardoned � maybe it had been a ploy all along, to make him see reason and stop being a revolutionary, but he did not know it anyway � and then he is able to part with his experience and share it with the readers, who are to understand how precious life is, how we feel when we are about to die and how intense we would be living, on a rock in the middle of the ocean, if we were to know we have very little, say minutes left�

This is confirmed by research in positive psychology, explained in the classic magnum opus Flow by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi where we find that to reach the Optimal State, Flow, Be In The Zone, we need to be in control, involved in activities that challenge and absorb us entirely, when time flies by and we lose the exact notion � the example of a ballerina that dances for one minute, only it feels like days is given � and we could well see Reading Michel de Montaigne as one of those occupations that bring us to Flow, defying death in the sense that it helps us cope with the idea � not in the manner of the superb comedy History of the World although comedies help us feel happier and therefore live longer…happier, more positive people live longer, have more successful private and professional lives, when they get ill, they stay so for shorter periods, which is so paramount in a pandemic�