Montaigne Readalong: Week Five

The Montaigne Readalong is a year long project in which I try to read over 1,000 pages of Montaigne’s essays. Every Monday I write about the essays I read for the week. You can share your thoughts or join the readalong if you’d like, just check the Montaigne Readalong schedule. You can read several of these essays for free on Google Books or subscribe to Montaigne’s essays on Daily Lit.

Note: I’m posting this on Thursday rather than Monday because I was participating in a book tour on Monday.

Essays Read this Week:
1. On the power of imagination
2. One man’s profit is another man’s loss
3. On habit: and on never easily changing traditional law

Favorite Quotations:
“When imaginary thoughts trouble us we break into sweats, start trembling, grow pale or flush crimson; we lie struck supine on our featherbeds and feel our bodies agitated by such emotions; some even die from them.” (On the power of imagination)

“Married folk have time at their disposal: if they are not ready the should not try to rush things. Rather than fall into perpetual wretchedness by being struck with despair at a first rejection, it is better to fail to make it properly on the marriage-couch, full as it is of feverish agitation, and to wait for an opportune moment, more private and less challenging. Before processing his wife, a man who suffers a rejection should make gentle assays and overtures with various little sallies; he should not stubbornly persist in proving himself inadequate once and for all. Those who know that their member is naturally obedient should merely take care to out-trick their mental apprehensions.” (On the power of imagination)

General Thoughts:
This week was essentially sex advice from Montaigne. What a dirty dead white guy. Okay, he wasn’t that dirty, but he does seem awfully concerned with the performance of men’s members during sex. On the power of imagination was an essay about our ability to convince ourselves bad things will happen. I can totally relate to this. I am the queen of psyching myself out. If you go into something thinking it will be bad, it will probably be bad. Montaigne has several examples of this, almost all of them are related to sex. Apparently the best way to illustrate this phenomenon is discussing men who are unable to have intercourse because they are convinced they won’t be able to perform.

Seriously. If you read no other Montaigne essay read this one. It has some naughty bits.

One man’s profit is another man’s loss. Don’t think that one needs much explaining and it’s only a page long.

On habit was quite interesting but drug on way too long. He talks about how others perceive what we believe is perfectly normal. My favorite example was a guy who blew his nose with his fingers because he said boogers weren’t special enough for him to blow them in a hanky and carry them around all day. Classic. Not all of his examples are boogers though. He lists several things that are considered normal in other cultures, like burning their dead and polygamy and nose rings, but that seem odd to Europeans. Then he turns the tables and writes about things other cultures probably find odd and he does so in such a way that makes the reader see the strangeness of these things too. Basically, everyone is weird.

Questions:
1. Would you take sex advice from a dead man?
2. Are boogers special?

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