Book Reviews

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert
Translated and with an introduction by, Paul Auster

Some readers may find this to be an odd book to include; indeed it is not a book in the usual sense. In point of fact Joubert only prepared to write a book and despite 900 pages of densely recorded text gave up on the idea. Instead his notebooks, which recorded his daily thoughts for forty years, represent the sole body of his writing. Auster has chosen about one tenth of those entries from 1783 to 1824. But oh, what writing it is: clear, intelligent and insightful thoughts and reflections about philosophy, literature, and psychology. These are some of my favorites:

“Are you listening to the ones who keep quiet?”

“It is necessary that something be sacred.”

“Here in the desert. In this silence everything speaks to me; in your noise everything falls silent.”

“Those who never back down love themselves more than they love the truth.”

“All things that are easy to say have already been perfectly said.”

I could go on and on as each time I read this slim book of 159 pages I find more wisdom. Evidently I am not alone. In his introduction Auster tells of giving a copy of Joubert’s book to a painter friend, David Reed who in turn “loaned” it to a friend who had been recently hospitalized suffering a “nervous breakdown.” After he read the book he gave it to another patient who gave it to another and so it passed around the ward until groups of patients would gather in the dayroom to read passages of Joubert’s notebooks to each other. When David’s friend asked for the book back he was told it was no longer his or as one patient said, “It’s our book. We need it.” Ah, words as medicine for the soul.