En busca de consuelo: Vivir con esperanza en tiempos oscuros

by Michael Ignatieff, Jordi Ainaud i Escudero (Translator)

Un libro luminoso y reconfortante sobre cómo los grandes filósofos y artistas recuperaron las ganas de vivir tras afrontar grandes crisis. Nos blinda contra el desaliento. «Ignatieff nos recuerda que no somos la primera generación que se enfrenta a la desesperación y busca caminos para salir de ella». The Guardian Cuando la vida parece perder su sentido, necesitamos palabras. Cuando sufrimos un duelo, una traición, la soledad o una derrota, buscamos ayuda para recuperar ese sentido. El lenguaje del consuelo fue antaño el gran objeto de estudio de religiosos y filósofos, pero se ha ido desvaneciendo de nuestro vocabulario moderno. Desde el siglo XVI, la humanidad ha tendido a rechazar el alivio proveniente de los textos sagrados para, en su lugar, concentrar su fe en la ciencia, las ideologías y las terapias. Además, como advierte el gran pensador e historiador Michael Ignatieff, «hoy el premio de consolación es el que nadie quiere ganar. Las culturas que persiguen el éxito no prestan mucha atención al fracaso, la pérdida o la muerte. La consolación es para los perdedores». Ignatieff explora con brillantez y de forma conmovedora el modo en que una serie de filósofos, escritores, artistas y músicos como Dante Alighieri, Albert Camus, Anna Ajmátova, Gustav Mahler o Primo Levi recobraron la esperanza tras momentos de desamparo. A menudo encuentra las claves donde menos lo esperarí en el fracaso del estoicismo de Cicerón, en las noches de insomnio de Marco Aurelio, en las ilusiones rotas de Karl y Jenny Marx, recreando las situaciones en que estas grandes figuras encontraron el coraje, la fortaleza, la fuerza intelectual y la imaginación necesarios para hacer frente a su destino. En busca de consuelo muestra lo que esas historias pueden enseñarnos a la hora de afrontar las angustias e incertidumbres del presente. La crítica ha
«Seguir a Michael Ignatieff en su búsqueda de momentos de consuelo en la historia es iluminador, conmovedor y reconfortante, todo a la vez».
Stephen Greenblatt, autor de El giro «La lectura de estos memorables retratos de figuras históricas que necesitaron, buscaron, perdieron el consuelo o lo encontraron deja al lector bien concienciado de los profundos retos y posibilidades que la vida nos plantea».
Mark Lilla «Este ensayo erudito y sincero nos recuerda que la necesidad de consuelo es intemporal, como lo son las palabras inspiradoras y los ejemplos de quienes recorrieron el camino de la vida antes que nosotros».
Toronto Star «Ignatieff rastrea lo que pueden enseñarnos los grandes pensadores sobre cómo aferrarse a la esperanza y seguir creyendo en la vida. Este libro importante defiende que lo que nos consuela no son las doctrinas, sino las personas».
The Irish Times «Una inspiración para los que necesitan palabras para seguir con su vida».
Kirkus Reviews «Imprescindible. Ignatieff quiere que los modernos conozcamos las viejas costumbres que hemos dejado atrás, y recordarnos que algunos problemas están, por su naturaleza, más allá de los poderes de la tecnología y del buen gobierno».
Air Mail

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Psychology, Self Help, Essays, Audiobook

296 pages, Paperback

Published May 11, 2023

About the author

Michael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician. He was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Harvard University and the University of Toronto.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pithy collection of short (around 10 pages) religious and mostly philosophical musings centered around the theme of consolation. Of those I knew: Job, Paul (of Epistles fame), Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Boethius, El Greco, Montaigne, Hume, Marx, Lincoln, Mahler, Akhmatova, Primo Levi, Camus, and Haclav Havel. And those I didn't: Condorcet, Max Weber, Radnóti, and Cicely Saunders. Max Weber coined the term "Protestant work ethic," which I know well, being a product of one-time Calvinist New England.

If brief overviews are your thing, this neat little survey course of a book offers some relevant info and occasional new tidbits about people you know and love (like, in my case, Marcus Aurelius, Michel de Montaigne, and Abe Lincoln). Toward the end, as we hit more modern times in this chronologically-ordered collection, Ignatieff gets to insert himself a bit, too, with thoughts on the pandemic and on society's return to some bad habits from the 30s and 40's (the heyday of lies, racism, anti-immigration, purposely forgetting history, etc.). And though he doesn't mention Trump, he does mention Trump's master:

For example: "The last survivors of the Holocaust and Stalin's terror are dying, and what they endured is passing from memory into the contested domain of history, and from there, in the still more contested terrain of opinion. More and more people actually think they have a choice about whether to believe these things happened. The ruler of contemporary Russia, whose father worked for Stalin's killers, has made nostalgia for Stalin the official ideology of his regime. He has said the destruction of the Soviet empire was the greatest catastrophe of the twentieth century. Poor (Anna) Akhmatova -- one can only be glad that she died not knowing how faithless her heirs would be."

Reading the Camus chapter also kindled my desire to reread the read-long-ago book, The Plague. I love it when one book leads to another, like the shin bone leads to the ankle bone.

Quick, instructive, and rather light for deep material.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an open door to write that we live in disruptive times: the accumulation of terrorism, political polarization, resurgence of nationalism/populism, the climate crisis, the outbreak of pandemics, war, and as a newcomer the energy crisis... all this has brought the naive optimist that I always was to the stage of uncertainty, doubt and sometimes even desperation. At such a moment it is good to pick up a book that zooms in on consolation, and where we can find it. The Canadian ex-politician Michael Ignatieff apparently is a man of great erudition (you don't find many like that, among politicians I mean): he takes us on an exploration of 25 centuries of consolation literature. In 17 short chapters, he highlights where a particular writer or thinker has sought and found comfort. It starts with the anonymous writer(s) of the Bible book of Job and ends with the British Cecile Saunders, the founder of the palliative care movement. He includes very obvious characters (Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Albert Camus, Vaclav Havel), but also surprising ones (El Greco, David Hume, Condorcet). Agreed, they are almost all men and almost all Europeans; Ignatieff pleads guilty on this count, but nonetheless t I think he chose them well. For it is a motley crew that perfectly illustrates that solace can be found in many different ways: in accepting the vicissitudes of fate or the omnipotence of a wayward god, in plainly ignoring pain and suffering, in falling back on oneself or on the contrary in the sharing with others, in the ideological conviction of redemption at the end of time or of emancipating class struggle or of continuous progress, in music, etc. Personally, I was particularly struck by the chapters on El Greco, Montaigne and David Hume.

Ignatieff himself seems to want to convey two messages in this book. First, that hope and comfort always go with uncertainty and even outright doubt, never with certainty (because that is pure blindness). And two, that we share the feeling that we live in a hopeless time with countless other people from the past, with people who have each tried to cope with it in their own way, and whose example can offer us both inspiration and comfort. “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”. This is a great book, which once again made me see that it isn't a failure to seek for consolation, a message that still has relevance in these harsh times. Rating 3.5 stars.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first heard of this book, I was surprised, because I hadn't realized that the author was, well, an author. As a Canadian, I'd aways thought of him as a politition, not a writer. But he is a wonderful writer, which was interesting to discover.

I found this book unique. There's no lack of books on grief, but I've never come across one dedicated to consolation. I mean, yes, books on grief always touch on the subject, but I've never found a book entierly devoted to it, a book that looks at everything from biblical to the phiosophical. It's well-written, enganging, and, honestly - consoling.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short biographies of people from antiquity to modern day plus reflections on the Psalms, Book of Job, and Paul's epistles and how all the figures treated were consoled through their writings, portraiture or music. At salient points in each entry, quotations expressed their thoughts. Even today we may be heartened by their words. This is a work meant to be dipped into repeatedly.

Highly recommended. I thank LibraryThing for the ARC I was sent.

[William Schram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Human suffering is a fact of our existence. People have been coming to terms with this for millennia.

Michael Ignatieff peruses the different works of literature, music, and philosophy made by someone to console themselves. Ignatieff starts with the Bible, looking through the book of Job and the Psalms. He moves chronologically through the various works, taking seventeen chapters.

As far as consolation goes, Job is a perfect choice to many. Job was a righteous man, and he was wealthy. He had a large family and was truly blessed. He loses all of his stuff and gets sores and boils all over his body, but he does not reject God or curse his name. Job asks for an explanation, though, shaking his fist in self-righteous anger, and God comes down in a tornado of glory. It establishes that God is ineffable; there is no point in trying to understand a divine being.

Paul of Tarsus, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Boethius and Dante, Michel de Montaigne, David Hume, Condorcet, Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Camus, and more all wrote works that deal with consoling grief. The book also covers works of art and pieces of music. El Greco's Burial of the Count of Orgaz gets an analysis along with a work by Mahler.

The book is fantastic. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

____________________________

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.

[Lauren Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to #GoodreadsGiveaway for a copy of this wonderful book.

Michael Ignatieff has written a profound, and profoundly intelligent, book examining suffering and what sort of consolation we may still find from the text of western thinkers through the centuries.

Critics might balk at the fact that the texts Ignatieff examines are written almost exclusively by white men (except for Anna Akhmatova and Cicely Saunders, the latter appearing in the final chapter), and is determinedly Eurocentric. I suggest they shouldn't. Ignatieff is right: there is much wisdom and consolation to be found in these texts. Should other books be written about other texts? Absolutely, but this is Ignatieff's particular bouquet. There's nothing wrong with that and the book should be weighed only against its own intentions.

There is also nothing fluffy about the consolation Ignatieff explores. This is tough stuff. We begin with Job, after all, and his litany of horrors.

Cicero. Montaigne. Primo Levi. Abraham Lincoln. Marx. Mahler. Camus. Havel. Marcus Aurelius. Dante. Greco.

These are maestros of suffering.

Ignatieff encourages us not to treat our suffering as illness: "...when suffering becomes understood as an illness with a cure, something is lost. The religious traditions of consolation were able to situate individual suffering within a wider frame and to offer a grieving person an account of where an individual life fit into that divine or cosmic plan." We are not alone. We are, in our suffering, part of the human condition. While this might be a Stoic's perspective, Ignatieff is right, there is consolation there, in that we are not alone and there is no suffering that someone before us has not endured and understood. This is true even in this "post-religious" world where the philosophies of faith may leave many wanting.

He says, "To be consoled is to make peace with the order of the world without renouncing our hopes for justice." That line, and others like it, offered this reader consolation.

During the time we spend in meditation with these great thinkers (and our generous and thoughtful guide, Ignatieff) who have also suffered greatly, we are not offered happiness necessarily —which seems flimsy and false in the face of true agony — but rather something far more enduring. Consolation is grief and suffering understood and shared; it is a weight that is not removed, but which another helps us carry.

Not only is Ignatieff a very good thinker indeed, he is also a very good writer and these excellent essays offer pleasure and solace in equal measure. Highly recommended.

[Sally Kenney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so ambivalent about this book. It reminded me of everything I loved and hated about my experiences studying philosophy and political theory first at the University of Iowa and then at Oxford. I loved delving into great books and big ideas. And I found solace in surprising places, for example from the disciple Paul and I understood Ecclesiastes for the first time. On the other hand the total erasure of women and gender from the inquiry was beyond infuriating. Women are wives and caretakers--even better if they can read poetry, provision the imprisoned, or care for the sick, and bear to lose children and endure infidelities without flinching. Ignatieff bows from time to time to class and race, but rarely gender privilege. The great women of history and philosophy are those devoted to pining for lost or dying men. It just oozes with the clubbiness of the intelligentsia sitting around All Souls deciding who has the big idea while all reproductive labor is done by women. It made me think that we need both a woman's and a feminist's On Consolation. How did Susan B. Anthony bear the loss of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and die without winning the vote? How did Fannie Lee Hammer carry on, brutalized and infertile with a few token votes for the Mississippi Freedom and Democratic Party? How did Rosa Parks bear rapists going free? How did Andrea Conant survive Bill Cosby's release from prison? Perhaps Rebecca Solnit comes closest--not that she would ever make it into Ignatief's frame. With novels like Lessons in Chemistry documenting the devaluations, marginalizations, and violence of aspiring women today, or even Circe, how do we go on post-Roe? Post-Hillary? How does Rachel Maddow rise to the occasion every day? Does Beth Macy feel justice has been done? But my time for compensatory philosophy is over and it's someone else's turn. Off to pickleball.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me lectures coming with worded compassion although also holding/ coming from a high level of stated authority (Biblical or past authority cored sources) as these mainly do? Somehow they just don't console.

Not a fan of making any inconsolable reality this lecture heavy to begin wth or as elitist voiced as the author's view and chosen sources.

Much better to read original author or lives' works cited. DNF

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Which one of us has not consoled someone in need or needed consoling at some point in our lives? But if readers approach Michael Ignatieff’s extraordinary book, On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times, expecting it to be a five-step how-to guide for finding consolation, they will quickly be disappointed. The motivation and genesis of this book has multiple elements, not the least of which is Ignatieff’s question to himself, “And what does it mean, exactly, to be consoled?” There were also questions from friends and colleagues revolving around “Why consolation? Why now?” And even though the author began the book before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, he acknowledges “the veritable explosion of attempts to provide consolation, to give meaning to our shared feelings of disorientation, fear, loneliness, and raw grief, as the death tolls rose from the scarcely believable to the mutely accepted.”

To address these questions and behaviors, Ignatieff “took counsel from the great men and women who lived through times darker than our own and who found consolation in the works of art, philosophy, and religion.” And this is not at all a religious book in tone or message, since Ignatieff admits his “nonbeliever” status on the second page of the “Preface.” Rather it is a meditative study of how many well-known historical figures found or dispensed deeply personal instances of consolation.

Ignatieff tells us, for example, that Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman politician and orator extraordinaire, resorted to a private life of stoic self-command for consolation when the tragic death of his beloved daughter left him heartbroken. Even refusing “the comfort of tears,” his form of dry-eyed consolation came only from “the approval of male peers.” The emperor Marcus Aurelius, as he wrote his Meditations, derived consolation, Ignatieff says “not from confession, from being alone with himself, but from the roles, the duties, the burdens he bore.” The consolation for us is to know that not even emperors can avoid nights of suffering alone with their thoughts.

Ignatieff’s diversity in the instances of people seeking or offering consolation include the Italian poet Alighieri Dante, Greek painter El Greco, French and Scottish philosophers Michel de Montaigne and David Hume, author Albert Camus, Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, German composer Gustav Mahler, and many others. Death of loved ones was often the driver behind the need for consolation, and it is not without a touch of poignancy that the final example in Ignatieff’s utterly absorbing book is Cicely Saunders, someone whom the author actually met in person in 1996.

Saunders founded the modern hospice and pioneered palliative care. She rejected the notion that dying was characterized as the loneliest moments of our lives, and saw it rather as “the most public and social moments of our existence.” In hospice, she created the supporting institutional setting. Ignatieff writes of Saunders, “She understood not only that the dying needed a place where consolation would become possible, but that the dying wanted to use their final days to console others and that the giving of consolation was essential to the receiving of it.”

Ignatieff personalizes his narrative in the “Epilogue” of On Consolation by talking of his parents’ deaths and of his marriage. To capture what he and his wife believe what it means to be consoled, he references the poem “Gift” by Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. “Consolation,” says Ignatieff, “is always a gift, a form of grace we do not always deserve, but which, when we receive it, even for a fleeting instance, makes our lives worth living.”

The multi-dimensional Ignatieff—politician, historian, philosopher, academic—has addressed a subject of universal importance with eloquence, intelligence, and profound insight, and with an exquisite balance of objective observation and personal contemplation.

[Lester Bakker · Rating 5 out of 5]

In ‘Troost’ neemt Michael Ignatieff je mee op een intieme en reflectieve reis door verlies, verdriet en de zoektocht naar betekenis. Wat mij raakte is hoe hij subtiel en tegelijkertijd krachtig laat zien dat troost niet hoeft te komen uit geloof of uit oude tradities, maar vaak uit de meest menselijke dingen: een gesprek, een boek, een schilderij, of simpelweg de wetenschap dat anderen dezelfde pijn hebben gevoeld.

Ignatieff’s focus op seculiere vormen van troost voelde voor mij als een uitnodiging om te kijken naar wat ons verbindt in het menselijk bestaan, wat volgens mij extra belangrijk is in de huidige seculiere samenleving waar geloof op de achtergrond is komen te staan. Hij beweegt moeiteloos tussen de wijsheid van Marcus Aurelius en het rauwe realisme van Virginia Woolf, en maakt duidelijk dat troost geen vast recept heeft. Voor sommigen ligt het in stilte, voor anderen in de woorden van een geliefde of de bladzijden van een boek. Zijn woorden brachten me terug naar momenten van verlies en betekenisloosheid in mijn eigen leven, en hoe ik, soms zonder het door te hebben, troost vond in kleine rituelen: een wandeling, een herinnering, een dagelijkse routine, een brief die ik nooit verstuurde of trekken die ik herken van mensen die ik verloren heb.

Wat dit boek voor mij echt bijzonder maakt, is dat het geen kant-en-klare antwoorden biedt. Het is geen handboek voor rouw of verlies, maar een zachte begeleiding bij het vinden van je eigen weg. Ignatieff laat zien dat troost een proces is, een voortdurende zoektocht, en dat daarin juist een grote schoonheid schuilt. ‘Troost’ voelt niet alleen als een boek, maar als een compagnon voor momenten waarop woorden moeilijk te vinden zijn.

[David Crowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 2.5 up to 3. Really wanted to like this book as a wonderful title and potential balm in our troubled times but too much of an ascetic, learned history lesson to really engage. i feel if you are going to engage with consolation and solace it has to resonate emotionally for the reader.

Liked the last few chapters where we saw more of him and his own approach to life and consolation around his parents and his family and the chapter on the hospice- a case of what could have been as a book

[Chris Dietzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This sounds like a self-help book and while part of it is, that's really the third-most relevant aspect of it.

- First and foremost, it's a series of very precise biographies of famous historical figures and how each dealt with grief in their own way.
- Second, it's a history book on the evolution on the concept of grief and the resulting consolation.
- And third, through these two aspects, Ignatieff does a great job of bringing everything back to how the reader may benefit from each of these historical stories.

I loved every part of this. I had never heard of Ignatieff and know nothing about him but after reading this I will gladly read whatever else I find by him.

[Erfun Bagheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

«در باب تسلی خاطر»

به‌نظرم این کتاب قرار نیست یک «خودیاری» باشد. بلکه مجموعه‌ای از روایت‌هاست — قصه‌ی آدم‌هایی که در دل تاریکی، به چیزی چنگ زده‌اند: فلسفه، ادبیات، شعر یا حتی فقط یک نقاشی یا کارت‌پستال.
خواندنش تجربه‌ی بدی نبود؛ برای من، حاشیه‌ها دل‌نشین‌تر از متن بود؛ کشف بعضی جزئیات از روایت‌ها و اشاراتی به هنر و ادبیات.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the book to pick up when you are having a bad stretch. It’s better to read either before things get dark, when you are of an age to know that life is not even, or after a you have emerged from such times.

Ignatieff is a deeply thoughtful and a skilled writer. Beginning with a visit to a friend grieving the death of his wife, he observes that “To understand consolation, it is necessary to begin with the moments when it is impossible.” To console another is often to sit as silent witness.

As much of the world has become more secular, the meaning of consolation has changed. “The religious traditions of consolation were able to situate individual suffering within a wider frame and to offer a grieving person an account of where an individual life fit into the divine or cosmic plan.” Providing meaning in this way is not available to secular society where now grief is considered to be an illness in need of medication, rather than meaning.

There is a difference between comfort and consolation. The former is physical and transitory…an embrace in the line at a funeral reception or a pat on the back. Consolation is “…an argument about why life is the way it is and why we must keep going.” It is enduring.

“The essential element of consolation is hope: the belief that we can recover from loss, defeat, and disappointment, and that the time that remains to us, however short, offers us possibilities to start again, failing perhaps, but as Beckett said, failing better. It is this hope that allows us, even in the face of tragedy, to remain unbowed.” 7

He then describes 17 individuals across the centuries beginning with Job and how they sought consolation from diverse traditions, philosophies, art, music and history. These are tight biographies of luminaries as diverse as Paul, Marcus Aurelius, Hume, Lincoln, Mahler, Camus, Havel and Cicely Saunders, the founder of palliative care.

He concludes that: “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.”

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure Ignatieff tried his best, but his inclusions and omissions mark this as a painfully white, western project, culturally Christian, if non-faithful, and centered in a mainstream liberal view of humanity. Any serious book on consolation that omits the thoughts and traditions of the enslaved, the colonised, of religious and philosophical traditions outside the narrow ambit of the white west - Abraham Lincoln exists for Ignatieff, but not WEB Du Bois, or Frederick Douglass - is incomplete and insufficient. Ignatieff's anti communism sits awkwardly when a passing mention of war criminal Madeline Albright is made with no reckoning with her crimes. While Cicely Saunders deserves gratitude for introducing palliative care, her anti-euthanasia stance, and Ignatieff eliding Camus' grappling with suicide, lead to a skewed picture. He does discuss Levi's suicide sympathetically though. Like any good liberal, he leaves us with a vision of people comforting each other in dark times and no real consideration of transforming the ideas and structures that enable these hard times.

[Geertje · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I admire how Ignatieff has given an overview of the western tradition of consolation from biblical times to the end of the twentieth century, and how he has done so using a variety of mediums (letters, psalms, books, music, paintings). By placing each of these pieces and their authors in their historical context, he explains how these people came to these specific conclusions about consolation.

I'm not sure how useful this book is as a way to console oneself, but then I didn't read it for that purpose (I disagree with people who shelved this as 'self-help', though who am I to deny them the consolation they may have gotten from this book? I personally just think that,if Ignatieff meant it as self-help, he could have done a bit more to help the reader).

Ignatieff has a pleasant writing style.

Minor gripe: when mentioning paintings, I would've liked for the book to provide a small picture.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book addresses how people from biblical times to the present have dealt with being bereaved and grieving. It is not a how to manual but narrative descriptions of men's, and one woman's, thoughts on how to attain consolation in the face of grief. The 17 essays progress from the Book of Job through the centuries to Palliative Care. In each case the author tells the story of a person and their take on consolation. And he does not restrict himself to the written word. His series includes a painting by El Greco, a musical composition by Mahler as well as a new form of health care pioneered by Cicely Saunders.

Each essay is well written in an almost conversational tone so it is comfortable reading.

After all is said and done his conclusion, and what he identifies with, is one-to-one interaction, one human being consoling another.

[Robert Jeens · Rating 5 out of 5]

How have great thinkers handled grief? In this graceful compilation, Michael Ignatieff has written a series of essays detailing what sages have written when inconsolable with loss. The vignettes show the shallowness of the contemporary wellness industry, that sadness is not a sickness with a cure, that “some losses are irredeemable”, and that “[t]he challenge of consolation in our times is to endure tragedy,…and to continue living in hope.” The vignettes are written to illustrate the great richness of “the chain of meaning we have inherited”, to “see ourselves in the light of history”, to realize that many people have endured worse than anything in the headlines today, and to show exactly how they did it.
The author says that he came to the book after he gave a lecture on the Psalms and then we all lived through Covid 19, and so that is where it starts, with an essay on the Book of Job and Psalms. He moves on to the Romans, as we learn about stoicism, virtue, and the deaths of Cicero and Seneca: a vision of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, supreme and alone. He spends time on the Christian tradition, St. Paul, Beothius and El Greco. The Enlightenment is represented by Hume’s equanimity in facing a Godless and heavenless death, Montaigne’s admonition to love life, and Condorcet’s betrayal by the revolution he believed in. The magnanimity that Lincoln displayed in his Second Inaugural Address should be an example to us all in these politically fragmented times. The consolations of music. Weber’s uncertain consolations of hope in reason and responsibility, with the knowledge it would never be enough. The poets of the concentration camps. And he ends with Camus and Vaclav Hamel, two people as flawed and thoughtful as the others.
The real point of the book is people searching for consolation and maybe failing to achieve it. Mourning the death of his daughter, Cicero had to leave Rome and was later embarrassed by the fact that he had cried. Both Condorcet and Marx wrote treatises that they would be validated by history, and neither of them were. Lincoln’s message of magnanimity was betrayed by his own assassination and the continuing discrimination against black Americans, especially in the South. The Holocaust generations’ calls for us to remember are being forgotten. Camus realized that the lessons of the Nazi occupation of France were actually universal and timeless, a stance that was at odds with the other major post-war thinkers in France. We need to come to terms with things it is impossible to come to terms with.
Ignatieff is a good old classical liberal. He is trying to show us what is possible in a post-religious world, “what it is like to live in a time after paradise”, in which we know that humans are not perfectible. His essay on Condorcet explicitly teaches that an excess of revolutionary spirit eats it young. He repeatedly reminds us that we need a politics of sober responsibility. He is a self-consciously graceful and thoughtful writer.
I like this book as much for what it represents as what it is. As an old humanities graduate, I can become very cynical about the state of my major today. Professors write detailed monologues and publish them in journals that nobody except other specialists read, and 80% of them are never cited at all. There is great pressure to conform ideologically in their choice of subject, method, and conclusions. Graduate school amounts to a Ponzi scheme in which many hope that years of suffering poverty will eventually be rewarded, but it probably will not. Then, however, one encounters a scholar like Ignatieff and you realize that in most of life, there are many useless weeds and few rare roses. We need scholars like him to transmit the best of the human past, who realize that human beings are all flawed, but there have been rare people with profound, valuable messages and we should not let their human failings outweigh them. He has the depth of knowledge to create vignettes from across time and space in which it is possible to see the love and humanity of the characters that Ignatieff has chosen, and it is possible to feel his love, humanity, and craft of scholarly erudition. He understands that the Western tradition is deeply flawed as well as deeply meaningful and beautiful. This is what the humanities are all about.

[Claartje · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lang geleden dat ik zo'n goed boek heb gelezen waar ik ook veel van leerde. Je wordt aan de hand van beroemde mensen (jammer, van de 17 mensen zijn er maar twee vrouw) meegenomen door de geschiedenis. Deze mensen zijn op zoek naar troost en/maar twijfelen ook vaak aan zichzelf of dat wat zij tot stand hebben gebracht. Dat maakt hen menselijk en hun teksten troostrijk voor anderen. Hoewel, Job blijft, ondanks alles, geloven in die ene God en wordt zelfs boos als hij niet meteen antwoord krijgt. Dan komt Paulus, daarna Romeinse schrijvers en staatsmannen, en een troostbiedend schilderij van El Greco, Voltaire die niets heeft aan zijn boeken en maar gewoon naast iemand gaat zitten. Condorcet die tijdens die verschrikkelijke Franse revolutie alleen is en in een schets beschrijft hoe hij het ziet: wetenschap en rationalisme bieden dat waar een mens behoefte aan heeft. En dat denkt Marx ook: troost is niet meer nodig als we eenmaal in een wereld leven waarin iedereen gelijk is en alles voor iedereen beschikbaar is. Lincoln en Weber volgen nog en tussen hen in Mahler met muziek: troost zonder (of soms met gezongen) woorden. Hoe troostrijk kan dat zijn? Getuigen van WO II (Achmatova, Primo Levi, Radnoti) die voor ons hebben beschreven hoe het was in de kampen en daaruit troost haalden: het schrijven zelf bood troost (net als voor veel vorige schrijvers). Camus dan die onderzocht wat troost biedt in 'La Peste': zwijgend naast het bed van een stervende zitten en diens hand vast houden. Vaclav Havel met de vanuit de gevangenis gestuurde brieven aan Olga en ten slotte Cisely Saunders, oprichter van het hospice: doen wat gedaan moet worden door naast een stervende te gaan zitten. Want juist in dat moment van sterven -de overgang, het loslaten- kun je troost bieden door er te zijn.

Heel mooi dus. Menselijk licht in donkere tijden.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last chapter and epilogue pulled this book up for me. The historical references set the stage for them but were a bit disconnected for me. I am glad I read this and learned ok forward to discussing it.

[Liesleest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prachtig. Diepgang en troostrijk.

[Mari Janssen · Rating 5 out of 5]

diep geraakt (en veel nieuwe inspiratie)

[Olivia Ransom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hesitated to buy this book at first, and when in doubt, there's no doubt, I should have listened to my gut feeling, not impressed at all.

[Bas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een bloemlezing die met zevenmijlslaarzen door de westerse filosofie heen gaat, losjes geleid door het thema ‘Troost’, met behoorlijk wat politieke en levensbeschouwelijke uitstapjes. Interessant voor wie zoekt naar antwoorden op levensvragen vanuit een niet-gelovig perspectief. Veelzijdig; Ignatieff verleidt de lezer om een aantal van de genoemde auteurs er wat uitgebreider op na te slaan.

[David R · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a fascinating read by an individual who is an historian by trade and who for a few years was in politics in his native Canada when he was a member of the House of Commons and subsequently the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

It is a book about studying how we go about the concept of consolation, whether dealing with grief, depression, loneliness, failure, pain, and/or death. How do we go about the practice of consolation? Through prayer, theology, stoicism, or by throwing ourselves into actuvities such as writing, reading, listening to music, or engaging in our profession? Ignatieff discusses several foljs from history in this context: the Apostle Paul (surprising, considering Ignatieff is agnostic), Cicero, Dante, Hume, Marx, Max Weber, Gustav Mahler, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Camus, Vaclav Havel, and others. There is extensive discussion of the Book of Job, and the Psalms (he leans heavily on Robert Alter - note to clergy) - both, of course, can be read as consolative writings - and the Pauline Epistles.

I found this read gripping. Knowing of his political career and how it ended (via some unfair characterizations by the Conservative Party of him as “just visiting” as he has been a good deal of his career in London, and in Central Europe, I was surprised he didn’t pick a politician to focus on in this way. Joe Clark (a “Progressive Conservative”) would’ve been perfect considering he had a breat career as a diplomat after his brief tenure as Prime Minister. He addressed failure in his political career in his previous book, Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics.

I tend towards getting lost in music, books, and writing, so this book naturally appealed. But to see his argument about how others from history have done so was fascinating. It is a well written, very accessible read.

He ends this book with a poignant comment: “consolation is always a gift, a form of grace we do not always deserve, but which, when we receive it, even for a fleeting instant, makes our lives worth living” (page 261)

A scan on YouTube shows several interviews of him regarding themes from his book.

[Vansa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful, thoughtful book on how human beings have responded to sorrow and trouble over the years, and how the means in which we seek solace have evolved. Each chapter focuses on a literary, historical, religious character, or in some instances artworks, and explores a facet of human consolation through their story. His chapter on Job about Job's comforters and the cruelty of assuming that divine retribution is the cause for one's misfortunes is very well written . I particularly loved his chapter on Cicero- Ignatieff uses Cicero's devastation after his daughter's death, and how that led to a fall in his reputation,in a society that valorised the stiff upper lip, to explore how the expectation of stoicism from men has led to an unfortunate repression of perfectly normal reactions to grief, and has been internalised for centuries. His chapter on one of El Greco's paintings, is the starting point for a depiction of paradise, and he writes about how for millennia, the thought of a future paradise was sufficient consolation for one's sufferings on earth- something depicted in art by showing saints and angels, along with depictions of recognisable humans- a continuous link, and a reminder, for the faithful, of their ultimate reward. I found his chapter on Michel de Montaigne delightful- I didn't know what his writings said, and Ignatieff explains it very lucidly, Montaigne's views on the importance of daily routines and the little things you do for yourself everyday that are all means of comfort, in times of distress ( much before social media influencers posting self care/ASMR videos!!) . His chapter on the start of the hospice movement is lovely and moving, and I've personally seen how important end of life care is, and how hard access to that is, so it's wonderful that the pioneers of that are given due attention and appreciation. This is one of my favourite books this year and it's one you can dip into repeatedly- this book itself offers consolation.

[Sharon Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The noted academic and former politician examines the nature of consolation as a means of helping us accept the tragic reality of our lives.

“Consolation is what we do, or try to do, when we share each other’s suffering or seek to bear our own,” writes Ignatieff. “What we are searching for is how to go on, how to keep going, how to recover the belief that life is worth living.” The author is generous in providing cases in point. Foremost is Job, the biblical figure whom God tested with exquisitely awful punishments. The great lesson of Job, Ignatieff suggests, is not that he eventually bows to his tormentors, but that he teaches us to “refuse the false consolations of those who deny what we have endured.” The author then turns to the Psalms, which “have enabled men and women in pain, throughout the ages, to grasp the commonality of their experience.” Both Job and the Psalms, he adds, give us the language to express our hurt. Cicero may not have been the greatest model of probity, but the Roman philosopher adds to that literature, as does Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor, whom Ignatieff credits with setting a noble example: “For it is consoling to know that not even an emperor can get through the night, alone with his thoughts. That is something we can share with him.” Montaigne turned to his thoughts, alone in his tower, in the face of a terrible religious civil war that had lasted for 30 years. Having witnessed the peasants in the countryside around him prepare for their plague-borne deaths by digging their own graves and awaiting the end, he found consolation for his impending demise. Marx and Lincoln also figure in these pages, as does Cicely Saunders, the founder of the hospice movement. Ignatieff concludes that consolation is a species of grace, which makes the consoler an angel in disguise.

An inspiration for those in need of words to carry on with life.

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a bit of regret to say this, I found this a bit tedious to get through. It's a heavy topic and the historical pieces are sometimes interesting, but again it felt more like work to move from example to example in each chapter.

[Cerebral Calisthenics · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his illuminating portrait of the inevitabilities in our lives of tragedy, death and war, as shown through well-known people, finding solace in dark times is essential for humanity. Whether personal or during their prolific impact on history, these men and women read, write, crumble, embrace, sob and crumble again before just barely picking themselves back up to continue on. Ignatieff allows us to see a microscopic picture of individual suffering while taking into account the greater view of the world circling around them. From Saint Paul's anguish in writing Paul's Epistles, to Lincoln's mindset during his emotional battle with two sides of a nation, to the development of palliative care by Cicely Saunders over 50 years before her death in 2005, we see how torment beats us over the head while on a road of doubt, humility, and with consolation's help- recovery.

A mind-blowing concept Ignatieff hones in on is the difference between consolation and comfort. For me, these two were one in the same until reading this book. However, subtle nuances of each bring about a whole new study on how we support those in need, and the depth of our relationships to them and ourselves. While comfort is simply physical relief, such as rubbing an ailing man's back, consolation is the idea of soothing emotional distress by helping the sufferer to unravel and re-ravel what they are going through with the element of hope.

A great read for personal growth...
Seeing the big picture of how humans coped throughout time is BIG while enduring life's hardships, and while finding your own means of consolation is a feat in it's own, realizing it is the essence of being human eases the difficulty. With that, learning to be attentive to those around you with the hope of opening up greater perception, instead of easily judging and disapproving, makes you AND the world a more informed (and better) place for all parties involved and beyond. Ignatieff displays how even intelligent, all-knowing figures from long ago, and those reacting around them, are all the more relatable because they too had to work towards those notions. Naturally, I don't always agree with other's choices, but more times than not, taking the time to understand them first has positively skewed my sympathy and bumped up my ability and desire to offer consolation. Reading this has now strengthened my grasp on humanity, solidarity and the parallels of life and suffering. I love that Ignatieff has done this for me, just as David Hume did while reading Plutarch. And from here I have been inspired to write, just as Marcus Cicero did when he sought solace after the death of a sick family member.

Although not always successful on the individual's part, each of these stories has equal importance. It displays how we can only live within our limitations, but with consolation's help, we can at least "...live in truth" (7). I highly recommend if you're looking for consolation yourself, or to take in all of life's ups, downs and outs.