Reveries of the Solitary Walker

I love this thing - I carry it around with me everywhere. If I'm feeling a little bored or in need of wordy inspiration, I pull it out of my backpack and open to whatever page flies out. I also use it to hold bills and other mundane paper goods.

When I read Rousseau's 'Confessions' I admired the man so much. But two issue compromised my view of him. Firstly his report of assigning his five children to the Foundling Hospital soon after birth - what a thing to do (and if he had investigated that prospect he would surely have realised that would have been as bad for them as any shortcomings he saw in what he could provide) - and what a thing to impose on his partner! Secondly was the negative view he had of people. Maybe some were against him, but somehow what he wrote didn't really convince me. In Peter France's introduction to his translation he suggests that some historians have wondered if Rousseau actually did have children - something I wondered about in my review. Am I making too much of this? In these ten reveries the matter of the children does recur. And in one of them he discusses what it means to tell lies - not without real insight - and how it can be justifiable. In the same breath he talks about his children. Perhaps we can draw our own conclusions. Something is not quite right for me here - the thinking processes of one of the world's great thinkers - at least as he committed them to paper. But strangely, after reading the reveries I am less convinced that there were, in fact, no children. These reveries 'scared' me a bit - there was a lot of what I see for myself as I get old - and I'm not ready for that yet! But I did enjoy Rousseau's puzzles, his anecdotes, his travel tales.

Rousseau was, along with Schopenhauer and Richard Nixon, one of the great paranoids in human history. There is ample evidence of this in REVERIES OF THE SOLITARY WALKER, but vastly more from any solid account of his life or of one of the people with whom he came in contact. I have read multiple bits in Maurice Cranston's acclaimed scholarly biography of Rousseau's life and it can be a depressing affair. I also many years ago read Mossner's biography of David Hume. It is heartbreaking to read the parts where Hume went out of his way to give Rousseau safe haven during a period of prosecution, but Rousseau's paranoia flamed and he accused Hume of offering him a place to stay merely so that he could still Rousseau's ideas. Paranoia is not a disorder that leads to rational reflection on things. Why Rousseau could possibly have imagined that a philosopher the stature of Hume would want to steal his ideas is difficult to imagine, but Rousseau needed little reason to build up conspiracy theories. Rousseau puts me in mind of the famous quip: Just because your paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you. Unfortunately, many people were out to get Rousseau, which with his preexisting paranoia was very much like pouring gasoline on an open flame. This book is very important for understanding Rousseau's psyche, but I find it almost impossible to read as a book of wisdom. It reads very much, if you know much about the details of Rousseau's life, as a map of advanced mental illness. There is no question that Rousseau had had very real problems, but the book records so many fantasies of abuse and mistreatment that it is painful at times to read. Painful yet fascinating. He writes constantly of "traps" throughout the book. He talks constantly of the conspiracies and plans that others have concocted with him as their intended victim. The result is that you can't quite trust whether any of his accounts of any of the events he describes in the book are true or not. He writes that upon playing with a small child he spotted one of the men sent to follow him about. Truth or paranoia? He writes that a man gives him a obituary written by d'Alembert of a patron of the arts that talks of how deeply she loved children and despite the fact the man finds the review hysterically funny it is, to him, badly written, Rousseau interprets his reading the piece to him as a thinly veiled attack on him. Rousseau had taken his own children to a foundling home. Although Rousseau attempts to defend himself, it was an act that any minimally civilized human being will rightfully find abhorrent. So it is a book that most readers -- unless they know little or nothing about Rousseau's life -- will find trouble trusting. There is substantial evidence that Rousseau was not merely paranoid -- in a modern clinical sense -- but a borderline sociopath. Cranston's biography recounts numerous instances when Rousseau was ungrateful, unkind, or downright nasty to eve

Many people often assume that they are the final authority on what goes on in their heads--after all, who is anyone else to tell me what's going on inside *my* head? However, the continued dissolution of depth psychology (esp. Freud) into popular culture, as well as a growing body of research by cognitive psychologists, is starting to make this assurrance suspect. I mention this because *Reveries of the Solitary Walker* is an excellent example of a literary version of this; here it is the readers more so than the author that can see what's going on in these "meditations".Aristotle once thought that one's best tinking was done while walking, a sentiment later echoed by Nietzsche. In that same spirit, Rousseau offers this small book as recording of his "meditations" performed during his solitary walks. Instead of giving us some profound wisdom that comes from solitude and philosophy, this book instead serves as an amazing first-person look at paranoid schizophrenia. Rather than wise musings, we get instead Rousseau's ruminations about the extensive plot to (1) isolate him from others and politically marginalize him, (2) have him killed--witness his attribution of a near-fatal carriage accident to a deliberate attempt to run him down, and (3) systematically alter his writings and misrepresent him after his death.As a book of reflective wisdom, this small treatise of Rousseau's is an utter failure. (One reviewer claims that this book changed his life, but how it could do so I have no idea.) However, this book succeeds in doing two things Rousseau did not mean it to do. First, it gives us incredible insight into Rousseau the man--more so even than his vaunted *Confessions*. Second, Rousseau's literary style and incredible gift for expression help to make concrete how the world looks to one suffering from paranoid delusions. (Sure, even paranoids have enemies; but this is probably because persecution complexes are likely to become self-fulfilling.)This is not a book that is of much use to those looking for spiritual or philosophical wisdom, but in other ways it is indispensible. For understanding Rousseau the man, there is nothing better in his own words. Psychologists and psychology students (esp. those involved in clinical psychology) have much to gain from studying this small book. Rarely, if ever, will one find a victim of mental illness so eloquently able to bring you to an unerstanding of his world.

Although regarded as the unscocial misanthropist, it took J.J. Rousseau complete ostracism from society to understand what completes him and creates constant fullfilment in his soul. With eloquent lyrics that beautifully portray his sincere sentiments, this collection of contemplations shows the self-searching rewards evident in solitude and tranquility. His lingering frustration and distrust with humanity hovers over every word, yet it doesn't overshadow the wisdom with which the book permeates. For anyone looking to search deeper within themselves, this book offers great insight to what may help aid in that path for enlightenment.