The Book of Dead Philosophers has on its cover a photo of a book with the title The Book of Dead Philosophers. The book in the photo is lying on its back, presumably in a supine, dead-book pose.
This is already annoying on many levels. But I looked inside anyway, and the introduction started with a quote from Montaigne’s “That to Philosophize is to Learn How to Die,” which went thusly: “If I were a maker of books, I would make a register, with comments, of various deaths. He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.”
Oh well, this is better, I thought. Kind of a how-to book on dying. I’m all for that. I’m entirely susceptible to the idea that if I knew how to die I’d know how to live. It might explain so much, I mean, about my general level of despair: I’ve got no clue how to die properly.
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March 23rd, 2009 | Comments (14)
