How to Live by Sarah Bakewell: Study & Analysis Guide

Sarah Bakewell’s How to Live is not a conventional biography or a dry philosophical treatise. It is a vibrant exploration of one of history's most enduringly relevant minds, Michel de Montaigne, framed around the urgent, personal question he spent his life answering: How should we live? By organizing her book around twenty possible answers drawn from Montaigne’s Essays, Bakewell masterfully interweaves the story of his life with the evolution of his thought, presenting him not as a relic of the Renaissance but as a startlingly modern companion for anyone engaged in the work of self-examination and navigating a complex world.

The Man and the Method: Life as Philosophical Material

To understand Montaigne’s philosophy, you must first understand his method. After retiring from public life, Montaigne retreated to his library tower to write. What he produced were essais—a word meaning “attempts” or “trials.” This was a revolutionary form. Instead of constructing a rigid, logical system, Montaigne used the essay to think on the page, probing his own experiences, memories, failures, and bodily quirks as the primary source material for philosophical inquiry. Bakewell shows how this made him a proto-modern thinker, one who prioritized subjective experience and skeptical inquiry over received dogma centuries before the term “modern” existed. His project was a grand experiment in self-examination, asking “What do I know?” with genuine humility. By making his own ordinary life the subject, he democratized philosophy, arguing that the proper study of mankind is not an abstract “human nature,” but the specific, flawed, fascinating individual—namely, himself, and by extension, you.

Core Answers to "How to Live": From Death to Diversity

Bakewell distills Montaigne’s sprawling work into actionable, interconnected answers. These are not commandments but observations from a lifelong experiment in living.

Don’t Worry About Death Montaigne’s most famous injunction is to stop letting the fear of death poison life. He argued that since death is inevitable and its timing unknown, constant anxiety about it is irrational. He practiced what he preached: after a near-fatal riding accident, he reflected not on terror, but on how pleasant it felt to slip away. His goal was not bravery but nonchalance—to “tame” death by familiarizing oneself with it and thereby freeing up mental space for living. This philosophy roots happiness in the present moment, a concept deeply resonant with modern mindfulness.

Read a Lot, But Forget Most of It Montaigne was a voracious reader, but he rejected pedantry. For him, reading was not about collecting quotes to show off, but about conversing with great minds to better understand oneself and the world. He believed you should digest what you read, letting it become part of your own judgment, rather than memorizing it. Bakewell highlights how Montaigne would often “misquote” or blend sources from memory, creating new ideas in the process. This approach champions critical engagement over rote learning, advocating for books as tools for thinking, not as authorities to be slavishly followed.

Be Ordinary In an age obsessed with honor, glory, and heroic virtue, Montaigne celebrated the ordinary. He wrote candidly about his bodily functions, his preferences, his weaknesses, and his love for his friend Étienne de La Boétie. This was a radical act. By insisting on the value of the mundane and the personal, he challenged aristocratic and scholarly ideals of perfection. To “be ordinary” is to accept one’s humanity with all its contradictions, to find depth in everyday experience, and to reject performative living. This ethos makes his work profoundly accessible and comforting.

Let Life Be Its Own Answer Ultimately, Montaigne believed life required no grand justification or overarching metaphysical purpose. The point of life is to live it—to pay attention, to experience, to savor. His essays let life be its own answer. He traveled not just to see sights, but to observe customs and challenge his own prejudices. He governed not to build a legacy, but to navigate practical problems with decency. This pragmatic, experience-based philosophy is a powerful antidote to existential angst, suggesting that meaning is not found behind life, but within its daily texture.

The Essay as a Way of Life

Bakewell’s analysis makes clear that Montaigne’s form is inseparable from his philosophy. The essay is the philosophical practice. Its meandering, associative, and sometimes contradictory nature mirrors how thought actually works. It is tolerant of ambiguity and change, allowing Montaigne to say “I am now of another mind” without shame. This framework demonstrates the essay form as a mode of thinking suited to a complex, uncertain world. It is a tool for exploration, not a delivery system for conclusions. By adopting this “essayistic” approach to life—observing, questioning, and revising our own beliefs—we practice a form of Renaissance humanism that is entirely contemporary, focusing on human potential, education (studia humanitatis), and ethical action in the secular world.

Montaigne’s Legacy: Skepticism and Tolerance

Bakewell presents Montaigne as a foundational figure for the modern mind through two key attitudes: skepticism and tolerance. His skeptical motto, “What do I know?” was a shield against fanaticism. Living during the brutal French Wars of Religion, he saw the catastrophic results of certainty. His skepticism was not cynical nihilism, but a cautious, open-ended inquiry that led to a profound tolerance. By studying the customs of the “New World” through travel accounts, he relativized European norms, famously asking, “What does ‘savage’ really mean?” He argued for coexistence and practical compromise over doctrinal purity, a stance that makes him a surprisingly urgent voice in today’s polarized climate.

Critical Perspectives

While Bakewell’s portrait is largely sympathetic, a critical analysis invites certain questions. Some scholars might argue that she occasionally smooths out the more challenging or paradoxical edges of Montaigne’s thought to fit the “how to live” self-help frame. Others might note that Montaigne’s liberating focus on the self can, from a different angle, be seen as a retreat from political engagement, despite his terms as mayor of Bordeaux. Furthermore, his tolerance, while advanced for his time, had its limits within the context of 16th-century French society. A robust study of the book involves engaging with these nuances, appreciating Bakewell’s accessible gateway while remembering that Montaigne’s own essays resist any single, final interpretation—which is precisely his point.

Summary

• Montaigne’s Essays are philosophical “attempts” that use his own life and mind as the primary subject, revolutionizing philosophy by making self-examination accessible and central.
• Bakewell frames his wisdom around answers to “How to Live,” including embracing life by not fearing death, learning thoughtfully, valuing the ordinary, and finding meaning in lived experience itself.
• Montaigne emerges as a proto-modern thinker whose skeptical inquiry and emphasis on tolerance, developed in response to religious violence, offer urgently relevant tools for navigating contemporary uncertainty.
• The essay form is itself a philosophical practice, modeling a flexible, exploratory, and non-dogmatic way of thinking that mirrors a well-lived life.
• The book serves as a brilliant gateway to Renaissance humanism, showcasing its focus on human potential, ethical action, and learning, while arguing powerfully for its enduring relevance to personal reflection and understanding others.