On Friendship, Conversation, Women, and Dying a Good Death by the Father of the Essay

Effigie of Michel de Montaigne, 1593 , Musée d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France. Photo: Wikimedia/Pline CC BY-SA 3.0

On Friendship by Michel de Montaigne

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Philosopher of the French Renaissance and father of the essay, Michel de Montaigne's work provides an interesting self-analysis that reminds me of Oliver Wendell Holmes, less the tongue-in-cheek wittiness. Montaigne draws on Ancient Greek and Roman classics repeatedly, which indicates the mood of the Renaissance. Some suggest that his topics parallel the Stoics, especially the final essay on dying well. Montaigne's ready dismissal of women as other than rational beings reflects the attitude of the times, but in this one senses a form of earlier institutional sexism that is far from rational. However, Montaigne's nonsense might be overlooked given the work was written in the 16th century. His essays on friendship and conversation provide many lessons that are applicable today, as is the discussion of idleness, and the importance of having purpose in one's life. I could not help but think of Woody Allen in Montaigne's discussion of the love of a father for his children, and the ideas of Freud and other modern psychologists expand on these very themes (of course, the Oedipus complex stems from the Ancients). Of particular note is Montaigne's public self-analysis. Not in the bare-all sense, but certainly in how he discusses one's foibles and braggartry, and how one might self-assess the worth of one's own work. I suspect Screech's translation gives the work such a modern voice, and I can only wonder (on this first reading of any of Montaigne's work) how much is lost in translation.

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What's in a Game? Berne's glimpse into the beginnings of the behavioural turn in the social sciences

Freud's Last Session. Photo: Kevin Sprague on Flickr CC BY-ND 2.0

Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I first read this book in about 2003. It was suggested to me by a woman with big hair who was making comments about other women with big hair. Bizarre! But I didn't see that game in Berne's work. As I began reading, I was struck by the 1960s tone. It was like watching the scene in Mad Men where Don Draper is discussing Betty's "psychological" problems with her psychiatrist, and the husband has more control over the process than the wife. Issues of American middle-class culture in the '60s emerge from time to time, and I wondered how such a book would fare today! It would be a candidate for the game of "Outrage" no less! But this time, I tried to comprehend the transactional analysis process by writing it down and going over the basis premises of games, and the social versus psychological roles of Parent, Adult, and Child, and how transgressions of social and psychological roles can lead to various games and situations. There is an emphasis on the results of group therapy and the therapist's observations of games, and it is clear that one is glimpsing the developmental stages of the profession of psychology (not so much psychiatry) as we know it today. Berne's work is based on his earlier publication, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy, and while it is suitable for a well-read general audience, the psychology professional is clearly in mind. I daresay the analyses and types of games have developed significantly since the book was written, but it is rather helpful in recognising different types of "games people play", even if all one can do is identify and then avoid such games. There are elements of Berne's idea of games that resonate with game theory in political science, albeit with less rigour in identifying the inherent biases. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that the behavioural revolution in political science was only beginning at this same time, and no doubt Berne was at the forefront of this revolution that continues to influence the social sciences.

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The Art of Letter Writing; or, Send a Letter, Post-Haste!

Letter writing is not entirely dead (just yet)

To the Letter: The Lost Art of Letter Writing and How to Get It Back by Simon Garfield

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a quirky book about the lost art of letter writing. I started writing letters again a few years ago, writing to family and later friends. My family and I still correspond but no friends ever returned a letter. One gentlemen did email me, saying he was pleasantly surprised to receive a handwritten letter, but that he used email these days. I have a letter waiting to go to my sister as I write this, and she will respond in kind. Garfield (his name was Garfunkel but this was changed by his forebears during the war; Simon Garfunkel would have been novel) touches on the re-emerging cult of letter writers, but begins at the beginning with the letters of Ancient Greece, and later Seneca et al., and mentions a number of famous authors and artists and their famous collections of letters that exist to this day. I did not know about Pliny the Younger's account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, nor many other letter-writing stories of old. The book is cleverly punctuated with letter from a soldier to a woman who becomes his pen pal/girlfriend during the Second World War, and the story of their growing love unfolds as does the history of the letter (and to some extent, the post). I found myself wanting to finish each chapter to get to the love story. It has inspired me to tackle a few of the as yet unexplored volumes of letters I have in my library: The Letters of Ernest Hemingway (three volumes), George Orwell: A Life in Letters, The Letters of John Keats, and, although not strictly letters, but The Journal of Sir Walter Scott. Garfield's work is well-referenced and provides a stack of further reading. This book was a gift, and while I may not have chosen it myself, it was an enjoyable and enlightening read, both from a historical perspective and also as one who might consider letter-writing, at least to my family, a form of hobby. I was surprised by the number of typographical errors in this book, typically words missing the plural where it was required and other words repeated other words repeated (like that), and while it is understandable that almost all but the longest surviving (and therefore most edited) works will have some typos, there were quite a few here. Nevertheless, there were many snippets of history I was completely unaware of, and for that alone it was useful, but as a complete package, with the love story intertwined, this is a delightful book and I am pleased to now have it in my collection.

See also: The Art of Manliness: The Art of Letter Writing.

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