The author makes the claim that we don't have to be religious to be consoled by religious texts. This doesn't make any sense, as the way that religious texts console people is through the religious beliefs.... If I don't believe in Jesus, for example, how can I be consoled by the mythology of his sacrifice? It doesn't work that way ( )

There is a kind of intellectual writer who approaches his or her subject by scanning the long history of human activity, spotting key points of contact, and elucidating the particularities of that moment in time or the connections between it and other moments. This is what Michael Ignatieff does as he grapples with the notion of consolation. It is a method that very much works for writers of sensitivity and skill, such as Ignatieff, who have the wherewithal to encompass the whole and provide a synoptic view. Here you will find Ignatieff to be just as thoughtful on the trials of Job as he is on the music of Mahler or the poetry of Akhmatova. His writing is gentle, insightful, and sprinkled with enough warmly rendered anecdotes of his historical actors to make it a pleasure to read. You are almost certain to learn something that you didn’t already know, in as non-taxing a manner as possible. I did.

It doesn’t, for me, constitute philosophical writing. I believe it is what is now called “public philosophy.” When it is done well, as it is here, it makes for nice reading. And it’s certainly better than a lot of intellectual history you might read. So I have no qualms in recommending it, so long as it’s the kind of thing you might be looking for. ( )

Het is een open deur te schrijven dat we in disruptieve tijden leven: de cumulatie van terrorisme, politieke polarisering, heropflakkering van nationalisme, het uitbreken van pandemieën, de klimaatcrisis, oorlog, … hebben zelfs de naïeve optimist die ik altijd ben geweest aan het twijfelen gebracht. Op zo’n moment is het goed een boek ter hand te nemen dat inzoomt op troost, en waar we die kunnen vinden. De Canadese ex-politicus Michael Ignatieff is blijkbaar een man met een grote eruditie (zo vind je er niet veel, onder politici bedoel ik): hij neemt ons mee op een verkenning van 25 eeuwen troostliteratuur. In 17 korte hoofdstukken belicht waar een bepaalde schrijver of denker troost gezocht en gevonden heeft. Hij begint bij de anonieme schrijver(s) van het bijbelboek Job en eindigt bij de Britse Cecile Saunders, de stichtster van de beweging voor palliatieve zorg. Er zitten heel voor de hand liggende figuren bij (Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne , Albert Camus, Vaclav Havel), maar ook verrassende (El Greco, David Hume, Condorcet). Akkoord, het zijn bijna allemaal mannen en bijna allemaal Europeanen; Ignatieff bekent schuld op dit vlak, maar hij heeft ze desondanks toch wel goed gekozen, vind ik. Want het is een bont gezelschap dat perfect illustreert dat troost op heel verschillende manieren kan worden gevonden: in de aanvaarding van de wisselvalligheid van lot of de almacht van een eigenzinnige god, in het negeren van pijn, in het terugvallen op zichzelf of net in het delen met anderen, in de ideologische overtuiging van verlossing op het einde der tijden of van emanciperende klassenstrijd of van gedurige vooruitgang, in muziek, enz. Persoonlijk was ik vooral getroffen door de hoofdstukken over El Greco, Montaigne en David Hume.

Ignatieff zelf lijkt in dit boek vooral twee boodschappen te willen meegeven. In de eerste plaats dat hoop en troost altijd samengaan met onzekerheid, vertwijfeling en zelfs regelrechte twijfel, nooit met zekerheid (want dat is pure verblinding). En twee, dat we het gevoel dat we in een uitzichtloze tijd leven delen met ontelbare andere mensen uit het verleden, met mensen die elk op hun manier geprobeerd hebben daarmee om te gaan, en wiens voorbeeld ons inspiratie én troost kan bieden. “Consolation is an act of solidarity in space – keeping company with the bereaved, helping a friend through a difficult moment; but it is also an act of solidarity in time – reaching back to the dead and drawing meaning from the words they left behind.” (…): “what do we learn that we can use in these times of darkness? Something very simple. We are not alone, and we never have been”. ( )

A book written for the times, that is today’s of pandemic fear and pandemic enforced isolation. The current situation of imposed isolation, and restricted contact with relatives and friends, much less others, led the author to seek counsel from writers who through the millenia have looked for, and expressed, consolation by their writings.
Thus he covers a range of writings ranging from the deeply religious like the Psalms and the Book of Job, as well as Paul’s epistles, to the extremely prosaic Marx’s Communist Manifesto. The majority of them seek solace in a religious afterlife, many are grounded on terrestrial considerations but all show the myriad ways in which we look for, and find consolation in troubled times,
In total seventeen authors are discussed, plus a painting and songs, showing that consolation comes not only from words but also visually and hearing.
Each of the chapters is by a different author, although two of them cover more than one author. Chapter five, on the consolations of “philosophy”, deals with the writings of Boethius and Dante, and chapter fourteen on the consolations of “witness” covers three poets. The Russian Anna Akhmatova who wrote the anguish and pain of the Stalin’s Communist purges, and the holocaust survivors Primo Levi and Miklós Radnóti.

The book begins with the story of Job, well known as an example of suffering and submission to God. How does Job get consolation, from his faith on God. Job eventually understands that the answer to the question of “Why me?” has no answer. But the answer is that humans must endure. The first chapter ends with commentary on the Psalms and their ability to console even to readers who are non-believers.

In Chapter two the author talks about Paul, his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus after having punished many for violating the Jewish law, and the adversity throughout his life sustaining him.

Chapter three turns to the pagan Cicero who followed the Stoic principles of manly behavior and facing adversity strongly. It was women who would resort to tears when events went against them. But at the peak of his power as a defender of the Republic, disaster struck him when he found out that his grandson had survived birth, but his mother Tullia, Cicero’s beloved daughter had died. Immediately Cicero became inconsolable, unable to face the world. He fled Rome to his estate in Astura, where he spent several months. Unable to grieve, because he felt that “all consolation is defeated by pain.” But time heals all, and writing too. He wrote his book Consolatio and a series of letters, Tusculan Disputations, where he wrote his philosophy of consolation. Shortly after he was able to return to his political life, only to be killed by the opposition,

In chapter fourth we learn about Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. This is a well known book, today frequently read. Details the story of Aurelius’ writings in the midst of battles, where he defeats barbarians. He wrote a number of aphorisms capturing his thoughts and views.

Chapter five covers philosophy- Boethius and Dante. Although Dante is more a religious discussion than philosophical. But both of them find themselves at a crossroads leading them to write. Boethius is in the extreme situation of being imprisoned, waiting for his punishment by death after opposing the king. Dante finds himself lost in his beliefs. Both of them find solace and a way out through their writing.

A painting by the spanish El Greco is the subject of chapter six. This painting (Burial of the Count of Orgaz) treats of the consolation that Catholic faith and coming together bring to the community. It is time depicted in the painting that brings the consolation.

Then we move to Michel de Montaigne’s thoughts about death and end of life, as he wrote in his last few essays. Incidentally, Montaigne was the inventory of the essay writing. His writings at the end of his life capture the necessity of taking life as it comes to us. All the happiness and good, as well as the sadness and bad.

Condorcet, David Hume and Karl Marx take another three chapters, and we come to Lincoln’s second inaugural address. This is marked as one of the great speeches of all time, including his Gettysburg address, where he presents a rebirth after destroying war. ( )

Summary: On how significant figures through the ages have found comfort amid tragedy and hard times, enabling them to press on with hope and equanimity.

Finding consolation, the solace that enables us to face tragedy and not relent nor give way to despair, has not been a theoretical exercise in the past pandemic years. Many of us have grieved the untimely deaths of friends and loved ones, and the rancorous discord of our public health debates, while healthcare workers dealt with multiple deaths every day during the peak of the pandemic.

In On Consolation, Michael Ignatieff, novelist, columnist, sometime politician, and historian of ideas, explores how people through the ages have found solace when faced with the worst life can throw at one–war, plague, tragic deaths. Ignatieff writes his book particularly with those in mind who reject the comfort offered by traditional religion. How do those who do not embrace a religious faith find consolation? He would contend that many have and that we may find help from them.

He begins with Job and the Psalms of lament. These do not offer answers for Ignatieff, but model the “doubt that is intrinsic to belief” and their preservation affirms that we are not the first to ask these questions. He then turns to Paul, contending that when Paul, as an aging man realized he may not live to see the return of the Messiah, turned to love as the sign of what the God he does not see is like (even though the text Ignatieff cites is one of Paul’s earliest letters, written at a time he was bidding people to be watchful for Messiah’s return). I think Ignatieff misinterprets Paul, though noting the theme of love that remains is an important observation, and one that runs through all Paul’s letters.

He explores the great conflict in Cicero’s loss of his daughter between the self-command of Stoicism that did not allow the show of emotion and his deep grief. Consolation comes from one’s male peers for that self-command. And sadly, men have been holding back their tears since. For Marcus Aurelius, consolation came from fulfilling his duties, even amid loneliness and loss. Boethius, facing execution contemplates his death and his fear of how it would come and finds consolation in his writing, both in the knowing of himself and the contemplation of God that enabled him to endure. And he hoped that he would be remembered, and he is.

In Goya’s The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, Ignatieff identifies our longing for timelessness in the elongated figures of Goya. Montaigne points us in the other direction. We find consolation in our love of life, the succession of pleasures, pains, and indignities of our embodied existence that signals we are yet alive. For David Hume, consolation came in the form of an unsent letter as death approached, summing up his life and that he had been true to his ambitions.

Condorcet, facing his own death in the French revolution, found hope in the idea of historical progress and the progressive perfectibility of man. Marx was similar in some ways, envisioning a utopia beyond capitalism, and a materialist grasp of life in which consolation was no longer necessary if a just world order can be attained. Lincoln found consolation in the humility that renounced vengeance for reconciliation, drawing upon a store of biblical wisdom.

For Mahler, he worked out consolation in his music, supremely perhaps in the Kindertotenleider, adapting five Ruckert poems and the lieder style, to trace a journey of coming to acceptance of the death of a child. For Weber, consolation took the form of finding meaning with one’s calling, in a world without God, where calling may only arise from within the self. For several, Akhmatova, Levi, and Radnoti, consolation as survivors of the Holocaust came in the form of faithful witness. Camus wrestled with what it was to live outside the grace that offers final consolation, concluding that living with the grace that accompanies another at life’s extremities is the consolation afforded us.

The final individual focused on is Cicely Saunders, who founded the modern hospice movement. Her consolation was the compassion that relentlessly sought to create the conditions physically, socially, psychologically, and spiritually. Her watchword was that of Christ in Gethsemane: “Watch with me” and she created a setting where one could reflect on the shape of one’s live among their loved ones. She helped people find closure and console those from whom they would soon be parted.

This book might have been called “the varieties of consolation” and what this suggests to me is that in a world where transcendent belief has waned, consolation is something each must find for oneself, and often it is within the contours of one’s particular life, experience, and, especially, relationships. The book offers the consolation that whatever we experience, whatever we ask, we are not the first, which may be some comfort. Ignatieff argues in the end that it is not in doctrine but in people that we find consolation:

“It is not doctrines that console us in the end, but people: their example, their singularity, their courage and steadfastness, their being with us when we need them most. In dark times, nothing so abstract as faith in History, Progress, Salvation, or Revolution will do us much good. These are doctrines. It is people we need, people whose examples show us what it means to go on, to keep going, despite everything.”

IGNATIEFF, P. 259.

I think there is much in what Ignatieff says. “Presence” that walks with one in the hardest times, sometimes the “presences” of those who have gone before, are deep sources of consolation. Yet there is something that Ignatieff, in his “age of unbelief” fails to account for, I believe. That is faith incarnated in believing people. Ignatieff speaks of how the dying console others. This happened on a visit to my grandmother in the last weeks of her painful death from cancer. Through the pain, she spoke of her faith in life everlasting. I’m sure my love meant something to her but her embodied faith has touched my life and my view of dying to this day, 57 years later. Faith ceased being an abstraction for me that day. Ignatieff has written with eloquence of the consolation found apart from transcendent belief, a vital concern in our day. Perhaps for those who find consolation in our doctrines as well as our community, writing a similar work may be a timely contribution to the discussion Ignatieff has initiated so well.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. ( )