Rousseau was never wholly secure or at ease in Switzerland — the cantonal governments saw him as a dangerous dissident — and his few years there were fraught with vain lobbying to confirm his residential status. Rousseau’s paranoia grew, not unjustifiably, and he saw himself as dogged by malevolent enemies and persecutors. Voltaire, malignity personified, the arch rival, published an anonymous pamphlet recounting the scandal of Rousseau’s children by Thérése, all of whom he had left at the gates of an orphanage. Thus stimulated, local clerics stirred up their congregations with claims of heresy and depravity and Rousseau’s house was stoned by a mob on one memorable and terrifying night. He came to loathe the village and the canaille who inhabited it, longing to find a country where he could be left in peace.
The philosopher David Hume, then living in Paris, invited him to England and Rousseau reluctantly accepted his offer. Hume, another well-disposed Scot, was a genuine admirer of Rousseau but the history of their relationship ended badly — in typical Rousseauesque fashion. Rousseau was a man of spontaneous impassioned emotion and illogical mood swings. Hume records a moment when Rousseau, in a bad temper, suddenly “rose up and took a turn about the room: but judge of my surprise, when he sat down suddenly on my knee, threw his hands about my neck [and] kissed me with the greatest warmth.” It was not to last. In 1766 Hume accompanied Rousseau to London and a wealthy patron installed him in his house in Derbyshire. Boswell escorted Thérése thither separately from Switzerland, during which journey they had a brief, energetic affair (Boswell noting in his journal “gone to bed very early and had done it once. Thirteen in all”). And all for a while was well until Rousseau got it into his head that Hume was the author of a satirical letter published in the English press (in fact it was by Horace Walpole) and he accused Hume of betrayal and of covertly opening his mail. Rousseau’s affection and gratitude had turned immediately to passionate vilification and disdain. Hume was hurt and baffled and eventually equally outraged at the accusations. So the English period of Rousseau’s life ended on this tone of mutual defamation and aggrieved self-justification. He and Thérése returned to France where, finally, at Ermenonville near Paris, another wealthy patron provided the philosopher with a rural retreat and he passed his last years in some form of comfort and peace, dying of a stroke on 2 July 1778.
His greatest work, and his lasting monument, was published posthumously. The Confessions is a truly astonishing autobiography, a beguiling mix of total candour, self-abasement, vainglory and special-pleading. Hume had encouraged Rousseau to write his memoirs and Rousseau told him the work was already underway. Rousseau said, “I shall describe myself in such plain colours that henceforth everyone may boast that he knows … Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” Hume commented sagely, “I believe he intends seriously to draw his own picture in its true colours; but I believe at the same time that nobody knows himself less.” This is the key to Rousseau’s abiding fascination in the modern age — he is one of the great characters of history, an absorbing psychological case study, of which we have, mercifully, copious documentation. Rousseau may not have known himself well but, thanks to Maurice Cranston’s exemplary labours, we have in these three volumes of biography (to be read alongside The Confessions, ideally) a chance to make the acquaintance of Jean-Jacques, in all his maddening and endearing complexities, ourselves.
1997
Muriel Spark (Review of Reality and Dreams)
“He often wondered if we were all characters in one of God’s dreams.” Thus begins Muriel Spark’s shortish, beguiling, twentieth novel. The “he” doing the wondering is Tom Richards, a sixty-something film director of some renown, who is recovering from a serious accident — a fall from a crane during the shooting of his latest film, The Hamburger Girl. This is about as profound as Tom gets (he is no great intellectual) and most of his waking moments are given over to thinking about himself — his future projects, his cares and woes, his love affairs and his wife and family.
The mazy and improbable plot largely centres on Tom’s relationship with his daughter from his second marriage, Marigold. Marigold is plain, difficult and demanding and an air of mutual dislike colours their respective attitudes to each other. Cora, Tom’s daughter from his first marriage, however, is beautiful and can do no wrong. Claire, Marigold’s mother, airily tolerates Tom’s egotism and his regular adultery. The family congregate around Tom after the fall (many broken ribs, a shattered hip), commiserate somewhat and go on their merry ways. Tom’s film is put on hold, retitled, then, after he has recuperated, starts up once more with Tom restored at the helm. Tom has an affair with his leading lady, Rose Woodstock, alienates another dysfunctional actress called Jeanne and presides over the several misfortunes of his daughters and sons-in-law.
It is all slightly ditsy and eccentric with a La Ronde style of serial infidelities adding a certain spice. Things get serious however when Marigold disappears: rather, things eventually get serious because no one seems to notice she has gone, at first. Finally the alarm is raised, the media are alerted, a search is initiated world wide and eventually Marigold is found disguised as a man living with some New Age travellers. It was all, it turns out, a way of tormenting her horrible father. Except that, mysteriously, a taxi driver companion of Tom (a compliant ear to Tom’s convalescent witterings) has been shot at and nearly killed. Was this Marigold’s doing?
By way of compensation for his paternal neglect Tom casts manly Marigold as a prescient Celt called Cedric in his latest absurd movie, set in Roman Britain, called Watling Street. Curiously, but then perhaps not, this is the movie business after all, Tom persists in recasting Rose Woodstock and Jeanne in this new film. Jeanne, now druggy and seriously unhinged, becomes a compliant agent for Marigold’s wiles. Marigold, still nurturing murderous thoughts, decides to kill her father by re-enacting the original crane accident, only this time with more fatal efficiency. Jeanne is engaged as saboteur but the plans go tragically awry.
Such summaries of Muriel Spark’s novels do them a misservice. What delights principally is the tone of voice, so enviably assured, such a distinct signature. In this novel the point of view is omniscient, we visit whichever character’s thoughts suit the Sparkian design. The voice is cool and spare, and in complete disinterested controclass="underline" “The youth recounted his experience with Marigold but said they had parted shortly afterwards. He did not discount that Marigold was perfectly capable of hiring a hit-man if the plan suited her. The police eventually believed the boy, whose name for the present purpose is irrelevant, and let him go. Where was Marigold? Nobody knew for sure.”