Montaigne

By: Stefan Zweig

Narrated by: Tyler Boss

"The others form the human being, I depict him; and here I present an individual who is quite poorly formed and whom I would certainly make largely differently if I had to reshape him. But now that's the way he is." This phrase from the famous essays of Michel de Montaigne outlines the character of the author and his work. Montaigne wrote his essays not from a position of certainty but from an awareness of his inadequacy. He thus reveals a level of critical self-reflection that, before his time, was rarely put on paper. Stefan Zweig dedicated a character study to this Michel de Montaigne, this French nobleman and freethinker among the religious dogmatists and political quarrels of the 16th century. With 'Montaigne' in 1942, Stefan Zweig laid the capstone of his essayistic biographical work, although it remained a fragment. The audiobook is based on the English translation from Vanessa Walsh from 2021.

©2021 Aureon Verlag GmbH (P)2022 Aureon Verlag GmbH

Unfortunate narrator

The American narrator was ill-prepared or incapable of pronouncing words properly, whether English or French, to the point of distraction.

Pean to a humanist

Stefan Zweig has a clear, beautiful voice. A most pleasurable way to learn about Montaigne the man, the writer and the humanist.

The reader is generally good, but annoyingly did not take the trouble to learn the correct pronunciation of some words you would expect him to know, such as impetus, which he pronounces “im- peet- us.” Nor does he know correct French pronunciation for most French names and words used.