The enticing quality of the essay is that it’s short, some written in a mere few pages while others may extend much longer. Of solitariness Montaigne writes, ‘The greatest thing of the world is for a man to know how to be his owne.’ And of drunkenness: ‘I finde it to be a fond, a stupid, and a base kinde of vice, but lesse malicious and hurtfull than others.’ Reading Montaigne essays, more than 400 years later, we see how times have changed yet we also get insight into the consistencies of humanity, nature, and culture. Renaissance author Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) is regarded as the originator of the modern essay and in three books of essays he covers a variety of topics, some including friendship, fear, vanity, solitariness, even drunkenness. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as a short piece of writing on a given subject. Throughout, Meloy invites us to appreciate along with her the endless surprises in all of life and celebrates the seduction to be found in our visual surroundings.The word ‘essay’ stems from the French verb ‘essayer’ – to try, to attempt. She introduces us to Navajo “velvet grandmothers” whose attire and aesthetics absorb the vivid palette of their homeland, as well as to Persians who consider turquoise the life-saving equivalent of a bullet-proof vest. Her keen vision makes us look anew at ancestral mountains, turquoise seas, and even motel swimming pools. In this invigorating mix of natural history and adventure, artist-naturalist Ellen Meloy uses turquoise-the color and the gem-to probe deeper into our profound human attachment to landscape.įrom the Sierra Nevada, the Mojave Desert, the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Bahamas to her home ground on the high plateaus and deep canyons of the Southwest, we journey with Meloy through vistas of both great beauty and great desecration.
Join our online discussion of our March book selection March 10 6:30 – 8 pm Discussion Leader: Elizabeth Burns
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