Michel de Montaigne invented the essay, and could well be the only person to have ever written one. Plenty of things called essays have been written, of course, and many — Lamb’s, Hazlitt’s, Emerson’s — are justly celebrated. But none are exactly like the ones Montaigne wrote.
In a way, they are just the opposite. Montaigne invented the name, too. It comes from the French word essayer, meaning to try or attempt. You could say that to write an essay about something means just to take a stab at it. Montaigne’s began as brief commentaries on favorite classical quotations, but soon expanded into wide-ranging meditations — the quotations became simply a means of triggering a train of thought, which Montaigne would then follow wherever it led.
This is what makes his essays different from those others, most of which have served as vehicles either for exposition or style or both. To be sure, Montaigne’s writing is stylish enough. He invented the plain style, clear and casual as the best talk. But for him style wasn’t an end itself; like a window, it was meant to be looked through, not at.
Montaigne also doesn’t seem to have arrived at any conclusion before he began to write. The point of his writing wasn’t to advance a position, but to record a process of thought. This is writing as an act, first and foremost, of self-examination, not self-expression (though it is that as well, of course). I have long thought a great opportunity has been missed in the failure to explore the essay as a method rather than a form.
But what about journals and diaries? Aren’t they examples of writing as a method of self-examination? Usually, though some, like Gide’s, are pretty clearly private performances meant for public consumption. The difference, however, between what a diarist does and what Montaigne did lies in the indirectness of his method: Montaigne explores himself strictly in relation to his chosen topic — such as one of those classical quotations. This enables him to get to know himself, not by recounting and pondering his quotidian round, but by seeing how his mind works.
Which brings me to the point of this column, in which I plan to try my hand at Montaigne’s opening gambit by riffing on a quotation every week.
Take that famous motto of his, “Que scais-je?” — “What do I know?”
I don’t think it’s anywhere near as straightforward as it seems. Is he wondering what he knows for sure? Or what he knows best? Maybe he’s just being sarcastic: What do I know? If I were to put the question to myself I think I would have some combination of all three in mind.
I suspect that Montaigne started by assuming that what he was most certain of — and knew best — was what he had experienced directly. That is what he measured those quotations against. After all, he must have realized right at the start that most of what we think we know we take on faith. DNA’s double helix, the structure of the atom, dark matter — these are all things we think are true because we have been told they are on the best of authority, not because we’ve done any research and figured them out for ourselves. Ordinarily, such knowledge proves sound — except, of course, when it doesn’t, and some guy like Einstein comes along and demonstrates that the luminiferous ether, through which electromagnetic waves were supposed to travel, doesn’t exist.
Direct personal experience has its own problems, too, as I can attest. More years ago than I care to specify, my family and I lived in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, in a large, three-story twin. One weekend, the family was away, and I was there by myself. In those days I had to be at the office by 6:30 in the morning, which meant leaving the house at 6, which meant hitting the sack by 10 the night before.
The incident I am about to tell of took place on a Sunday night. There was a steady rain falling, which is important, because it means there was no moonlight. We had just got a puppy and when I turned in I took the puppy with me and plopped her on the bed beside me, where she fell asleep as quickly as I did. Several hours later — it was about 4 AM — I awoke with a need to visit the bathroom. Having met said need, I returned and climbed back into bed.
And then, as I was lying on my back getting ready to doze off again, it happened: The door of the bedroom slowly opened and a short, squat figure clad in black entered the room. The only light was that coming from the hall and I couldn’t make out any details. The figure seemed to be carrying something like a cushion, and when it got to the bed began to lower it toward my face. I reached up to ward this off, but found my hands wouldn’t move beyond a certain point. I could feel the muscles in my forearms tense but it was as if they had encountered an invisible force field. At any rate, the cushion — or whatever it was — kept getting closer. All of a sudden, the puppy woke up, barked, and leaped up and snapped at the cushion. Whereupon figure and cushion alike dissolved into what I can only describe as a lightbulb-sized cluster of blue phosphenes (those colored dots you see when you press your fingers against your eyes).
I lay there for a few moments, then said out loud to myself, “What the hell was that?” I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. I only know it happened.
I also know that on the rare occasions when I tell someone about it, the person invariably offers some speculative explanation designed … to explain away the experience, because — let’s face it — it doesn’t conform to our usual understanding of reality. This leads me to conclude that one thing I am pretty sure of is that people don’t necessarily seek explanations in order to understand something. They’ll settle for one in place of understanding.
That’s What He Said [1] by Frank Wilson is published each Tuesday.
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Latest posts by Frank Wilson (Posts [6])
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