Curiosity

Four hundred years ago, French essayist Michel de Montaigne asked himself, "What do I know?" According to Manguel (A History of Reading), this question functions not to conduct us toward definitive answers but rather to stimulate us to explore ourselves and our surroundings, opening up vast horizons of doubt and potential. Hewing to this principle of exploration, Manguel's work contains 17 erudite meditations on humanity's great existential questions, framed within Dante's journey through hell in the classic Inferno. Each chapter takes the form of a question: What Is True? Who Am I? What Comes Next? The chapter then pursues each inquiry through the writings of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, the secret authors of the Talmud, and the occasional modern thinker. Manguel does not attempt to provide a biography of the theory or science of curiosity. Like Umberto Eco and other classical intellectuals, he produces a meandering flow of stories and musings, both personal and literary, that contrasts favorably with the methodical, linear narratives that audiences and peers expect from mainstream scholars.