Я ЧАСТО ДУМАЮ О СТАРИКЕ РУССО И ОСТРОВЕ...

I THINK OF OLD MAN RUSSO AND THE ISLAND OF ST. PIERRE OFTEN.

J.-J. Russo "Confession". Yuri Nagibin admires this book in his diaries. I started reading this book two times - and I was frustrated. Throwing. But these are my problems. Now I remember: it was Russo's "Confession" that I was looking for at the book-store in Krupa, in the late nineties. Then there was a strain with books, although the tree of good and evil was already beginning to throw off its forbidden fruits. I remember what a mysterious veil the name of Kafka was shrouded in for me, and with what pounding heart I went to the market, where the collected works published by the North-West publishing house awaited me. "Hello! You remember me. I asked you last Sunday ..." "Yes, yes."

Now I do not feel mysticism in buying books. Even at second-hand book stores. There are no mysteries and secrets left.

And that day I became interested in Rousseau. In college, he even concocted a talk about his parenting system. Concocted - well said. Then - consider, impudently copied from books. This is in the period between 2007-09 and I can boast that I wrote works dedicated to the work of Orson Wells and ours, sorry, Anton Chekhov. Himself. And then ... Eh, why remember ...

In short, Rousseau's name was shrouded in mystery. Some of his works were heard, but not "Eloise", not "Emile", and it turned out that I was looking for something, I myself do not know what. Which made the seller angry. He's used to dealing with serious people. And then a young man, moreover still pimply, asks to show him the books of Jean-Jacques. The man must have made a suspicious face. But I didn't like his look. I remember there was a salesman with a beard and glasses. And the books stood in piles and reminded me of an island. And around - a hum and perpetual motion. I definitely pissed the seller off. He sensed with his intellect that I was one of those "who heard the ringing, but do not know where he is." And while I was puffing, removing a pile of books, which crushed the volume of the French thinker, published in the "World Library" series, I already understood that I did not want to. But it was too late. I had to leaf through the book. I leafed through the book and returned it. Before that, he turned it in his hands for a long time. The seller looked at me through glasses and hoped that I would buy. But not me. Instead, he asked, "Is there anything else?" What did this "more" mean - how could I know? I was afraid the salesman would growl. But he's not a dog.

Probably, then I was just scared that I would not master the book. And now I understand why I returned it. There was no "Confession".

For me, reading Confession was a revelation. Although "Confession" is a revelation in itself. 18 century. Time of Voltaires, Diderot and ... Rousseau. But he is sincere than all of them. If you don’t want to get acquainted with other works of this French thinker, who wrote a long treatise on raising children, while all five of them were safely handed over to the Children's Home, don’t force yourself. But the "Confession" is worth reading. A man bares his soul before us. Not afraid to confess sins. Doesn't flaunt. Doesn't justify his actions. He is just like us. In some ways, a small person, with a weak soul, with a set of complexes and fears, a very painful, but talented person who wrote the following lines:

"I need an orchard on the shore of this particular lake, and not another, I need a loyal friend, a sweet woman, a house, a cow and a small boat. I will enjoy happiness on earth only when I have all this."

Van Gogh wrote in one of his letters to his brother: "I need a woman, and I do not want and cannot live without love." Rousseau wrote about the same thing - but in detail. And Vincent had it - was a cry. And screaming is sound. This is an instant. I don't know why I remembered Van Gogh. Probably because he was unhappy, because he never found reciprocity in love. Rousseau spent his whole life with a woman of not great intelligence, a village, innocent, to whom he easily spoke about his infidelities (or betrayal). Was he happy with her? Or - was it just convenient for him to live with such a woman? Was it love?
This and much more is up to you to judge if you believe me and read this book.

In conclusion, I will quote a few of my own lines, written about this book two years ago, on my blog in LJ:

"... How sincerely written, with childlike trust in people, written by a man who (most likely) was difficult - in communication, in family, in life <...> but in them (meaning the pages of" Confession " ) such a truth of language, such a naiveness, which I sometimes lack in the life around me, that I close my eyes to the real life of Rousseau, about which I know nothing and I don’t learn - because no director or writer will be able to reproduce it, to reproduce it in those colors that thickened around her ... And this is not necessary. After - he left "Confession." A big step is to publish it during his lifetime. His two-month stay on the island of Saint-Pierre and his love, which remained unrequited - love for d ' Udeto are the most memorable, most sincere passages from his "Confession." I bow before the courage of this man, before his sensitivity and those that he was able to pull out that tangle of phobias and complexes, express it, substitute a mirror through which you can look - at him and at