Tuesday's books - Anaïs Sierro
Since the age of reason, I've had the feeling that I'm endowed with a body, a mind and a soul. Without it, my life would be meaningless. To nourish one's soul and encounter that of others: this is a definition of existence that seems to me most beautiful and correct. At a time when this notion has become obsolete, the freshness of François Cheng's words brings us back to consider dualism. A primary question and its answers, which take us on the road to knowledge of the soul - if that is possible...
«I'm writing to you from Touraine, where I've come to seek a little rest. An early spring welcomes me. Suddenly in bloom, paulownias and cherry trees radiate the old walls with their flashes of violet and pink. Delighted to find the tender green at the end of the boughs and the darker green of the lawns dotted with snowdrops, birds everywhere awaken. [...] In the sky, returning swallows scissor the air, like “little hands” feverishly preparing the first parade of the year...».»
Poetic writing
Left for months in the infamous «must-read» pile, as if I feared disappointment, Of the soul remained a work in which I had set high expectations. Knowing Cheng's poetry, I imagined discovering the voice of an old sage, the gentleness of a scholar of the field and the depth of a researcher. I was not mistaken. Not only does he respond to the initial request with substance and knowledge, but he also immerses us in the poetry of a lover of life.
What strikes you on reading Cheng's first lines is the beauty of his words. He succeeds in caressing our soul through a description of the place from which he writes. He handles the art of writing better than most native French speakers. This is one of the reasons why I hold Cheng in such high esteem as a literary figure.
And while his poetry is often drawn from the very nature that surrounds him, it also seems to be drawn from his friendship with his interlocutor. He offers us readers a journey into the intimate relationship between the investigator and her correspondent. We read of a gentle affection, and are lulled by it as we navigate a philosophical reflection, but not only...
«In the absence of a definition, we can at least say that each is an entity endowed with the capacity to act. As a result, it seems possible to identify the domain and type of action of each, by first positing - intuitively - the following: the soul is that which enables us to desire, to feel, to be moved, to resonate, to preserve the memory of all that we have experienced, even if sometimes buried, even if unconscious, and, above all, to communicate through affection, through love; thinking of the three higher powers of the soul recognized by Augustine, namely memory, intelligence and will, [...The mind is that which enables us to think, to reason, to conceive, to organize, to realize, to consciously accumulate experience for the sake of knowledge and, above all, to communicate through exchange.»
Pedagogy
Another quality of this one-sided correspondence is Cheng's pedagogy. While he does his best to answer the question of the soul, he does so in a popularized and, above all, well-documented way. He exposes his knowledge with hindsight and does not impose his own opinion, but quotes his fellow philosophers and poets. We can obviously guess his opinion on the matter, but he applies the famous Socratic maxim to perfection «ἕν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα» («I know I know nothing»). He adopts a philosopher's perspective, dismantling his beliefs and starting from scratch. In this way, Cheng offers us philosophical honesty. He leaves us free to form our own opinions, providing us with a wealth of elements, quotations and different points of view. He has mastered the art of leading us along the path of reflection, with simple words and profound, dense content: popularization by François Cheng!
«All the dawns and sunsets, this mountain and that sea, all the trees and flowers, this feline and that bird, the boundless prairie traversed by superb galloping horses, the bottomless sky dazzling with incandescent stars... subtle or sublime beauties, who will convince us that they reveal combinations of chance? Don't we see that from the very beginning, the desire for life is accompanied by the desire for beauty, the prime signal of meaning and value? There's the soul of the world that yearns for beauty, and there's the human soul that responds to it, through multi-faceted artistic creation, through the inner beauty proper to a loving and loving soul - beauty of the gaze, of the gesture, of the gift, which bears the name of “holiness”,».»
I had no intention of passing on to you the secrets of this book of a thousand and one wonders, but I encourage you to read it - if and only if you wish to lull your soul with Cheng's words. And if I insist on this precision, it's only because the skeptic won't find anything to satisfy himself in terms of philosophical theories. On the other hand, if the skeptic wants to experience the soul, this is the book to read. And if theory fails, it's through Cheng's experience of existence and intuition that the proof comes, right from the very first pages. This collection of correspondences brings a breath of hope to this loss of belief in the human soul. For we touch the mind with theory, but it is with his words that François Cheng touches our soul and thus proves it to us...
Write to the author: anais.sierro@leregardlibre.com
Photo credit: © France Info
François Cheng
Of the soul
Editions Albin Michel
2016
162 pages
French 
German 
English