The New Lifetime Reading Plan

However, if the evidence of four centuries of survival is any indication, you will eventually be won over by Montaigne's charm, wisdom, humor, style, and mental slant. He began as a Stoic (see Marcus Aurelius [21]) but soon developed a gener- ally skeptical, though never cynical or negative, view of mankind. He was interested in everything, convinced of noth­ing. His motto was "What do I know?" His emblem was a pair of balances. He remained a good Catholic, because he was born one, and died in the odor of sanctity. But the tendency of his extremely influential writings has been to encourage the growth of free thought. In his characteristic gesture of sus- pended judgment, dogmatists will find little pleasure.

Montaigne's charm inheres in his style, that of the frankest, freest conversation, "simple and unaffected, the same in writ- ing as on the tongue." He is particularly candid on matters of sex, and those of us who are used to the naive obsessions of some modern novelists may find it interesting to see what a grown-up man has to say on the subject. Montaigne is not only the first informal essayist but incomparably the best. His art is always concealed. The man he gives you is never an improved version submitted for public approval, but always and forever himself. He writes as if he were continually enjoying himself, his weaknesses and oddities and stupidities no less than his virtues.

You may wander about almost at will in Montaigne. He should be read as he wrote, unsystematically. However, time has winnowed out certain of the essays as superior or more important. For the nearest thing to a reasoned defense of his skeptical position, see the rather long-drawn-out Apology for Raymond Sebond. In addition you might tick off the following, whose very titles will give you a good foretaste of Montaigne.

From Book 1: That intention is judge of our actions; Of idleness; Of liars; That the taste of good and evil depends in large part on the opinion we have of them; That to philoso- phize is to learn to die; Of the power of the imagination; Of custom, and not easily changing an accepted law; Of the edu- cation of children; Of friendship; Of moderation; Of cannibals; Of solitude; Of the inequality that is between us; Of ancient customs; Of Democritus and Heraclitus; Of vain subtleties; Of age.

From Book 2: Of the inconsistency of our actions; Of drunkenness; Of practice; Of the affection of fathers for their children; Of books; Of presumption; Of a monstrous child; Of the resemblance of children to fathers.

From Book 3: Of the useful and the honorable; Of three kinds of association; On some verses of Virgil; Of the art of dis- cussion; Of vanity; Of experience.

Try to get a modern translation, such as Trechmann's or, better, either Donald Frame's or M. A. Screech's. Avoid Cotton^ version; it is an antique.

C.F.

38

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA

1547-1616 Don Quixote

Don Quixote is one of the few books on our list that may prof- itably be read in an abridged (but, please, not a bowdlerized or children's) version. Walter Starkie has done a good job along this line. However, if you use, as I suggest, a complete transla- tion, do some skipping. Whenever (or almost whenever) you come to a goatherd or a shepherdess, some drivel lies ahead. Skip ali the interpolated pastoral yarns that pleased Cervantes's audience but bore us stiff. Skip every bit of verse you meet; Cervantes is one of the world's worst poets. Finally, use only a modern translation—Cohen's or Starkie's or, best of ali, Putnan^s. Post-finally, do not be put off by an occasional tedious passage or chapter in Part 1. Persist to Part 2. It is by far the greater. Even the finest writers sometimes have to edu- cate themselves through the mйdium of their own creation, and apparently that is what happened to this poor, maimed ex- soldier Cervantes. From writing about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza he learned how great they really were. Ten years elapsed between the publication of the two parts, and those ten years made a difference in Cervantes's genius.

These warnings are needed because, like Paradise Lost [45] and The Divine Comedy [30], Don Quixote is one of those books more reverenced than read, more lauded than enjoyed. It has had its ups and downs. Perhaps it reached its peak of popularity in the eighteenth century—you will see how much it meant to Laurence Sterne [58], for example. It is not so widely read in our time. Still, the fact remains that, after the Bible, it is one of the half-dozen books in the world most widely translated and studied. And for this there must be good reasons.

There are.