Montaigne in Barn Boots
A Wisconsin memoirist uses Montaigne's essays as a mirror for his own farm-bred, imperfect life, making a warm and funny case for careful thinking about how we should treat others.
What It's About
Montaigne in Barn Boots is Michael Perry's attempt to read the sixteenth-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne and see what he has to say to a rural American with a day job, a farm, and a long list of mistakes. Perry is best known for his memoirs of small-town Wisconsin life, and this book keeps that voice. It is part memoir, part reading diary, and part informal essay collection, moving from a medical episode that sent him to Montaigne's pages to chores, failures, and public life.
The approach is loose and personal rather than scholarly. Perry does not try to survey Montaigne's philosophy or settle academic debates. He reads the essays the way a practical person might, taking what seems useful, testing it against experience, and admitting where he falls short. The mix of humor and self-deprecation keeps the pace easy, while the questions underneath are serious: how to judge yourself honestly, how to live decently among other people, and why careful thought still matters.
Reading it feels like sitting with a friend who has been thinking hard and is willing to say so. Expect anecdotes that wander, sudden turns into weightier subjects, and a steady insistence that intellectual life belongs to ordinary people as much as to scholars.
Read this if you…
- enjoy warm, conversational memoir with a strong sense of place
- want an accessible way into Montaigne without needing academic training
- like essays that mix humor, self-criticism, and moral seriousness
Skip it if you…
- want a rigorous, scholarly account of Montaigne's philosophy or the history of the essay form
- prefer tightly structured arguments and are impatient with digressions
Key Ideas
- 1
Reading as an honest, improvised practice
Perry treats reading Montaigne as something you do in the middle of a life rather than in a study. He takes what catches his attention, chews on it, and sometimes gets it wrong. The book makes the case that a reader does not need credentials to get real value from a difficult text, only persistence and candor about what the text is doing to them.
- 2
Self-examination without self-flattery
Montaigne's essays are famously restless attempts to understand himself. Perry follows that lead and compares his own qualities, good and bad, with the philosopher's. The result is less a catalogue of virtues than an exercise in noticing vanity, inconsistency, and small failures, and deciding which ones are worth working on.
- 3
Rural life as a place for serious thought
A recurring argument is that farm chores, fixing broken machinery, and neighborly obligations are not separate from philosophy. Perry uses ordinary tasks as test cases for ideas about courage, judgment, and responsibility, suggesting that a Midwestern barn can be as good a place to think as a university library.
- 4
Citizenship and the duty to be better
Beneath the anecdotes is a sustained concern with how individuals should behave toward one another and toward public life. Perry covers a wide range of subjects, from faith to race, and keeps returning to the question of what a thoughtful person owes to others. The tone is earnest without being preachy, which is part of what gives these passages their weight.
Limitations
Because the book is built around Perry's own experience, it is only as persuasive as his anecdotes and judgments, and some readers will find the personal framing thin or too pleased with its own folksiness. Anyone looking for a close reading of the Essays, with attention to their Latin sources, historical context, or the debates among Montaigne scholars, will not find that depth here. Some topics are touched on briefly rather than explored fully, which can feel unsatisfying to readers who want more rigor.
Questions Readers Ask
- Do I need to have read Montaigne before reading this book?
- No. Perry writes for readers coming to Montaigne fresh, and the book works as an introduction because it stays close to everyday experience. Reading a selection of the Essays alongside it would deepen the experience, but it is not required to follow the argument or enjoy the stories.
- How does it compare to a more traditional introduction to Montaigne?
- A traditional introduction usually focuses on the historical setting, the development of the essay form, and the texts themselves. This book is more like a conversation with a single reader who is trying the essays out on his own life. If you want scholarly orientation, pair it with a standard introduction; if you want an entry point that feels human and immediate, this is a good choice.
- Published
- 2017
- ISBN
- 9780062230584
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Humor
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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