Between The Lines

Separation by time and space is no barrier to writers.

————

“A competent reader often discovers in another’s writings other perfections

than those which the author has consciously imparted to them,

and lends to them a richer meaning and aspect”

- Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592 -

Montaigne popularized the essay as a serious form of writing. He wrote three enormous volumes on a wide variety of topics. His essays were built upon his reflections about love, war, history, politics, art, and anything else he thought worth musing upon, including local gossip.

He was interested in everything.

In preface to his first volume he explained how he intended to write. He wanted his style to seem like speaking to a friend in the same room. Without the formulaic strictures that were common to his time he could comfortably shift focus, make asides, and generally ramble where he would.

It was a liberating idea. We should all be grateful he thought of it.

His observation that readers add meaning and angles beyond what was written is worth talking about. Readers responding to my own writings often say, ”Oh, that reminded me of . . .“ and they recall something in their life that was very like what I’d written. They’re happy to have remembered it.

I’m happy they did.

Readers also add interpretations I hadn’t considered. All of which might be called, reading between the lines. It might more truly be called, writing between the lines. I gain from knowing what readers have to say. Their personal viewpoint expands what I originally thought I was writing about.

Sometimes they tell me something I didn’t know. Sometimes they only say they enjoyed the piece. I like that, though I miss getting useful details of what they enjoyed.

Readers aren’t always gentle in their commentary. That doesn’t trouble me. I value honest responses, even the negative ones. Dr. Johnson once said, ”He that writes may be considered as a kind of general challenger, whom everyone has a right to attack”. Just so.

Writing is often thought of as a solitary business. That’s not quite true. Writing isn’t complete without a reader.

Montaigne occasionally comments in an essay what someone had to say about one other of his essays. The quote I started this essay with came from one of those occasions. Montaigne wrote some four hundred fifty years ago, yet the responses from his readers wasn’t really much different from the responses I get from people who read my essays.

Times change but people don’t.

I think modern people who will read some dusty tome from long-centuries past will be surprised to discover that the personalities of the olden people they meet in the book will be very much like the people they know right now.

That was the impression I had with Montaigne’s essays. His readers also read between the lines. Sometimes they remembered things they would not have told him about had he not written an essay about something similar. Sometimes they imagined meanings he hadn’t intended. Sometimes he learned something new from what his readers had to say.

Montaigne’s style of writing invited intellectual participation.

I don’t think my response as a reader to his writings was any different than the readers of his time, and probably no different from all the readers of the centuries in-between.

He seemed like a friend I never had. Each essay seemed like a visit to his home where we talked about things that interested us both - although he did all the talking.

The essay form he invented shaped the impression of friend-talking-to-friend.

If I keep writing I hope one day to be able to do the same.

Readers will let me know if ever I manage it.

Epilogue: Some time after I wrote this essay I read Emerson's essay, Montaigne; or, The Skeptic. I thought Emerson shouldn't have attached, "or, The Skeptic", to Montaigne because the linkage could easily mislead modern readers into believing nineteenth-century "skeptics", were the same as those found in today's Sceptics Society's dreary pedantics. Aside from that, Emerson's mid-1800's take on Montaigne's mid-1500's essays was nearly the same as mine in the early 2020's. Pleasant agreement of ideas, inclinations, and wonderings, made it seem like Montaigne, Emerson, and myself, were contemporaries rather than centuries separated.

I've had that same impression from many old writers and many old books.

Time change. People don't

By K. L. Shipley

Website: https://www.eclecticessays