Ryan Holliday, owner of The Painted Porch bookstore in Texas, said he liked Stefán Zweig’s Montaigne so much he bought 1,000 copies. I got one of them.
Holliday is selling Montaigne as a book for our times. I think he’s right.
Montaigne’s Essays are not about the importance of keeping the lights on in troubled times. His essays are an example of that. Montaigne lived in times that were as chaotic, murderous and fanatical as our own. People were killing each other in the wars of religion. Neighbor turned on neighbor.
Zweig was writing during the rise of fascism and the horrors of World War II. He found Montaigne’s question compelling: What does an individual do when the whole world seems to be going mad?
Sometimes, a writer writes a sentence that captures the book. I think Zweig did that, and this is it:
He who thinks freely for himself, honors all freedom on earth.
The person who keeps his head and continues to use it has a role in troubled times. He or she doesn’t need to publish or broadcast. In troubled times, we don’t need influencers. An example will do.
• Source: Stefán Zweig, Montaigne; London: Pushkin Press, 2015, p. 116.
