Author Forums: Michel de Montaigne
On Michel Montaigne
There is some inner judge to which we must submit and whether we manifest this submission in diary or in poetry matters not. "Nor is there anything sweeter than the chime" writes Montaigne, "of his approval." Montaigne wanted to conceal nothing or pretend nothing about himself. I find, in life and in writing, I can only say certain things. The guidance of the Baha'i writings, namely, that "we are forbidden to confess to any person" operates as a principle of living--and writing.
Replies (2)
Posted by
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. I am not interested in commenting on my faeces as Montaigne was in his Essays or expatiating, as so many autobiographers and biographers do, on the various and several activities of my penis or someone's vagina over the last half century after I discovered in 1965 at the age of 21 that these organs were a source of an immensely stimulating pleasure in addition to their normal anatomical functioning. Unlike Montaigne I do some concealing but, like Dylan thomas, I reveal some of this secret domain, although I can't compete with Thomas' twenty year orgy of drunkenness and lechery and his particular eccentricities like the occasion when he got his penis stuck in a two-ounce honey pot.
by RonPrice -
But, then, I don't think I'm quite the complex and disagreeable figure that Thomas seemed to be and which Andrew Lycett's new biography describes. Over a lifetime there are so many unusual, strange and unique events that occur to other parts of the anatomy as well, giving the genitals a bit of a run for their money, but I can't see any virtue in angling these sort of details into this story as a means of either entertainment or a way of illuminating the decades of my life.
Imre Salusinszky, "Shooting Star," Weekend Australian, January 24/5, 2004, p.8
by RonPrice