Journey Round my Room by Xavier de Maistre; Published by Arion Press

although he had a servant who could. So I could conceivably vary my environment a lot more than him by venturing out. Being an extroverted introvert in general, however, and choosing to continue to limit myself to essential trips out means my experience isn’t too much different than his house arrest, I suppose. In our house, I choose to be the one who did the “essential” runs to the store, as I normally do the food shopping and cooking anyway, and it would have been weird to suddenly offload that on my partner. So maybe she was closer to de Maistre and I was a bit like the servant in the book, but reluctantly for sure, as those trips were eerily disturbing whether I was in a space that was observing the social distancing recommendations or willfully ignoring them.

I am sure my reader would fain know why the journey round my room has lasted forty-two days rather than forty-three or any other number. But how am I to tell him what I do not know myself? All I can say is, that if the work is too long for him, it is not my fault that it is not shorter. Dismissing all of a traveler’s vanity, I should have been well contented, for my part, with a single chapter. It is quite true that I made myself as comfortable as possible in my room; but still, alas, I was not my own master in the matter of leaving it. Nay, more, I even think that, had it not been for the intervention of certain powerful persons who interested themselves in me, and towards whom I entertain a lively sense of gratitude, I should have had ample time for producing a folio volume; so prejudiced in my favor were the authorities who made me travel round my room!

I’m already a pretty voracious reader but isolation and a large amount of books in my home that I haven’t read yet means I’m reading even more. Enough that I have to give my eyes a break once in a while. The author avails himself of this same love. His comments on his library and books are pretty entertaining. He has this to say about his library:

My library, then, is composed of novels, if I must confess it; yes, of novels, and of a few choice poets. As if I had not enough troubles of my own, I share those of a thousand imaginary personages, and I feel them as acutely as my own. How many tears have I shed for that poor Clarissa, and for Charlotte’s lover!

I have to track down the Charlotte reference as that one didn’t jump out at me.

And he has this to say about his reading habits:

When I have wept enough, and made love sufficiently, I seek some poet, and set out again for a new world.

I wish I could be as eloquent when I talk to people about my reading. And I can only wish that he had explained further his thoughts on Milton’s Satan and democracy when he says “In vain I consider that, after all, he [Milton’s Satan] is a devil , that he is on his way to ruin the human race, that he is a true democrat, not after the manner of those of Athens, but of Paris.” What’s that all about? I think about democracy a lot these days as my idea of it gets chipped away by very undemocratic governments and leaders. Seems like a struggle that will never be over.

As a soldier, he obviously has seen his share of conflict, battle, and war. This infuses his mental wanderings into the art hanging in his room, which is another of his escapes from his confinement. In falling into one particular painting of what sounds like an idyllic and romantic scene from Don Quixote, he imagines the love of the shepardess in the picture and warns her:

Fair shepherdess! Tell me where is the happy spot that thou dwellest? From what distant sheepfold didst thou set out at daybreak? Might I not return thither and live with thee? But,alas! The sweet tranquility thou enjoyest will soon fade. The demon of war, not content with desolating cities, will soon carry sorrow and alarm even unto they solitary retreat. Even now, I see the soldiers advancing, climbing height after height, and hear cannon from the thunder clouds. Fly, shepherdess! Urge on they flock; hide thee in the loneliest caves, for there is no more repose to be found on this sad earth.

Modern war’s reach into the most remote (and militarily unimportant) parts of the world is foreshadowed here with the growing importance and reach of artillery. If he only knew how much more destructive his occupation would become!

Finally, the confinement encourages him to really experience things we might not really look at and feel and know in our own homes. Like how many steps it is from one part of the room to another. Like the joys of an arm chair and the importance of a bed where you might spend half your life. It was nice to see him refute the modern world’s proclivity to gender color by saying

In speaking of my bed, I forgot to recommend everyone to have, if possible, a bed with pink and white hangings. It is a fact that colors influence us to the extent of making us gay or sad, according to their hues. Pink and white are two colors that are consecrated to pleasure and happiness.

And that from a professional soldier that eventually would rise to the rank of General.

The design of the Arion Press edition hit the feel of this book pretty much right on the nose. The cloth covers, in the aforementioned pink and white (and grey) strike me as perfect now that I wonder if that was the connection they were going for. The small duodecimo format is perfect for a novel of this length and also could be envisioned as the size of book a campaigner like de Maistre might be able to cart along with him through Italy. This is one of the books Arion decided not to slipcase, and as usual, I wholeheartedly disagree with that decision, as a slipcase is always wanted in my library and would definitely be a plus for a book carted in a military convoy. And maybe because of this lack, my copy’s boards are a bit bowed. I’m not sure if a slipcase would prevent that or not or if it is due to some other issue.  One other nit with the binding is that there is a brownish stain along the crease of the spine that happens to coincide on the front of my copy with a white stripe in the cloth. I wonder if it is from the glue? On the back cover, the pink stripe is in the crease and I can’t detect any discoloration. So this could very well be an issue just with my copy.

I think Arion got the illustrations right on in this addition; they are well matched to the narrative here. The author spends a lot of time describing his room and its furnishing and the photographs complement the words. The website states

“Architect Ross Anderson took sixteen photographs of models of the room, its furnishings, and the author’s traveling coat, with a cellphone camera. These low-resolution pictures are printed on translucent paper; the result is an elusive evocation of an interior that reflects the interior of the mind.”

I really like the UV/UltraII paper used for the illustrations. The slight translucence of the paper allows the text behind it to show through and causes the image to be blurred and hard to make out when the page is against the adjacent one but then pops out when the page is slightly lifted from contact with the next. It’s not the same looking through the paper from the backside, so the image is even less distinct. This creates an effect as you read of the image being vaguely discernible when  you come upon it against the text block on the recto side as you read the verso text, then comes into clarity as you lift and turn the illustration page, and then fades even further when pressed onto the verso side of the text block as you read the next page on the recto side. I tried to capture this effect in the three photos at the end of the post.

The Arches Text mouldmade paper is simply divine. I could turn the pages for hours just to feel of them. And the smell is heavenly to boot. And I love watermarks. Even as I struggle to figure out the best way to capture them with a camera.

One complaint is that the translation credit is unclear. The Foreword, by “The Publisher”, I assume that’s Andrew Hoyem, states “This translation from the French draws upon those of Henry Attwell, 1871, and Edmund Goldsmid, 1885.” Who “drew” this translation?  Andrew Hoyem? The admin with two years of high school French? It’s cool if you don’t want to spend money on a new translation and pay a credible translator but at least give the “drawer” their due in case they want to use it on their resume when they submit another translation that’s translated instead of “drawn.” OK, I read a lot of literature in translation and I think translators need more love. Off my caisse à savon, or is it my kiosque à musique, …, anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox now.

I was probably underwhelmed by this book when I started my Arion Press subscription and I first saw it along with The Waste Land and the Emily Dickinson Sampler as my first books. The T.S. Eliot edition was what pushed me over the edge to start a subscription in the first place, and it is still a favorite. I had never heard of the Xavier de Maistre or his book. But I enjoyed the first read well enough that I was happy to place it on my growing shelf of private press editions. Reading it in the pandemic brought it to a whole other level of appreciation, however, and I highly recommend it to anyone feeling confined or isolated.

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