De Maistre's Lockdown

 In 1790, the exiled French aristocrat Xavier de Maistre spent 42 days under house arrest in Turin, for his role in a duel. Famously, he was not permitted to leave his room. He emerged on the other side of it with one of the most witty and delightful 70-page novellas ever penned. 

The Voyage autour de ma chambre is final proof, if any more were needed, that the celebrated techniques of postmodernism are no invention of the twentieth century. De Maistre, like Sterne—who plainly influenced him (and whom he references several times in the book)—was already writing "metafiction" more than two hundreds years ago. His narrative, as he travels from one side of his room to the other, over the course of 42 days, is periodically interrupted by Shandean digressions—many of them on the subject of the book itself, and the difficulty of writing it. Move over, John Barth—de Maistre was already doing Lost in the Funhouse. 

De Maistre even has a whole chapter made up of ellipses, as he tries and fails to force his mind to abandon its previous subject and think about something else (the divorce between two aspects of the human self—the conscious will and the unconscious automaton, which de Maistre labels "the beast," in an intriguing anticipation of Freud—is a frequent topic of his reflections). 

But the best thing about the book is not its role in literary history, or its showcase of comedic techniques which too easily get mislabeled in modern times as "avant garde"—but rather the character of de Maistre himself, as it emerges from the book. He is relentlessly endearing—mostly because all of the book's humor comes at his expense. His servant, his dog, and his mistresses are always getting one better on him, or acquitting themselves with greater dignity. 

To be sure, de Maistre remains the privileged aristocrat, even in exile. But he has the decency to mock at his own pretensions. For this reason alone, even his politics can be forgiven. Unlike the darkly reactionary speculations of his brother Joseph, Xavier de Maistre's right-wing views fail to offend—mostly because they generally fail to go beyond saying that the French "reign of terror" was a bloody travesty; which it obviously was. 

Many an exiled aristocrat, in flight from France, steeped in romantic literature as de Maistre was, and finding himself immured within four walls in a foreign city, would have made of his plight the stuff of tragedy and maudlin self-pity. The fact that de Maistre manages instead to find himself ridiculous is what makes him speak to us today. He is astonishingly modern; he is the ironic protagonist of today's satire, whose insignificance is revealed by the immensity of the historic forces confronting him, and his own smallness by comparison. And he is the one telling the joke on himself!

We therefore cannot help but love him; and he would make the most amiable company imaginable should we find ourselves under similarly circumscribed conditions. Here is the book we should have brought with us into our Covid confinement, in the spring of 2020. Our state of lockdown then lasted much longer than de Maistre's famous 42 days; but how much consolation we could have derived then from his reminder that the world of the mind cannot be contained within four walls! And, when we were ultimately permitted to leave, did we not share de Maistre's mixed feelings? 

The author reverses the roles of freedom and confinement for us. How much did we long for release from our 2020 lockdown; how greatly did we desire the sunlight and fresh air of the world outside our doors! And yet, in retrospect, were the months of confinement not themselves a kind of release? Did we not have greater freedom there, than we had under normal conditions? In the months just before lockdown, I traveled by plane about once per week for my job. I was harassed by obligations. Once the pandemic began, all of that ceased. My work and its scope were reduced to the size of my computer screen. 

Was not that a greater freedom than the ordinary world affords? Cannot a man be more free in his chamber than he can be in a cubicle? As de Maistre reflects (in Andrew Brown's translation), upon finally being allowed to exit his room, "So, today is the day I am to be free, or rather that I am to be shackled in chains once more! The yoke of business is going to weigh down on me once again[.]" And so it was with us. (So it was with me again, a few days ago, when I was trapped in that hotel room in Indiana by a car wreck—were those not two blessedly productive days?)

And so we will know, if the lockdown ever happens again, not to resent its temporary deprivations too heavily. We will also remember to bring a copy of de Maistre with us.