The Life of Henry Brulard Book

Spinach and St-Simon have been my only enduring tastes, at least after that of having lived in Paris on a hundred louis a year, writing books.

This was likely my favorite book since Čapek's Newts earlier this surreal year of anxiety and pestilence. This was nearly a perfect time to read this, as the author was essentially my age when he attempted to look back and gauge the defining events of his childhood. I don't believe I am in shape for a similar escapade but I thoroughly enjoyed his account of a lonely Republican spirit in a house of bigoted Royalists, though he's quick to admit that in terms of personal contact he couldn't live with proles. His adventures in the Grande Armée confirmed that, though he is likewise both suspicious of and hostile to the aristocracy. He regards his account as a summary of the fluctuations of the heart and that's what makes it wonderful, not just the illegible diagrams but the recognition of his folly and caprice. Stendhal has pointed me in the direction of both Rousseau and Saint-Simon.