Stefan Zweig says that when Montaigne traveled, he didn’t follow the guidebook. In 1580, Montaigne took off on a long tour. Here’s Zweig’s account of Montaigne in Rome:
He scarcely mentions the Raphaels, the Michelangelos, the monuments. Instead he attends the execution of a criminal, has himself invited into the home of a Jewish family to witness the circumcision of a child, visits libraries, enters the Bagni di Lucca, invites peasants to the ball; chats away with all the lazzarones. But he eschews all the celebrated sites. For him, all that is natural is to be celebrated.
Montaigne was on the road for almost a year and a half. Maybe I’ve been thinking about his travels because the Wise Woman and I just got back from a three-day trip to the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. We went a long way to see a natural wonder, Uncle Alex, 95. Like the Wise Woman, he is Black in a society that sees only Black and white.
He’s a Korean War veteran who came home to see the country get angrier and more disturbed. The neighbors across the county line elected George Wallace governor.
He lives in Pulaski, Tenn., which is known as the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. Uncle Alex’s living room had hand-drawn maps of a Black neighborhood with thriving businesses. It grew under the protection of U.S. Colored Troops, stationed in Giles County after the Civil War, and survived the of Jim Crow. He calls the place Belleview.
Uncle Alex is working on history projects these days. He argues with what his place in the world is known for. He wants a better account of what it should be known for. He wants a better guidebook.
• Source: Stefan Zweig, Montaigne, translated by Will Stone; London: Pushkin Press, 2015, p. 134.
