Steve Sem-Sandberg’s latest book, titled The Ocean, arrives in bookstores with a delicious blend of reality and fiction that brings readers closer to the most human side of the philosopher Rousseau. The author concentrates on the 45 days Rousseau spent on Saint-Pierre Island, in Bern, escaping the noise and the troubles that his various writings had been causing him for some time. Catholics, Protestants, and his own patrons had felt offended by the pen and the ideas of the philosopher who, at 53, did not enjoy good health, marked primarily by urinary problems to which the author gives the utmost importance. On the island, Rousseau lives with Thérèse, his housekeeper and lover, with whom the author would have several children whom he placed in orphanages, in a stance that may seem contrary to the very principles he preached, and which would leave a mark on their relationship.
The author ties the life of the philosopher to water, whether through the lake, his fixation on a painting, the rain, or his own illness, in order to reach, through this withdrawal from the world, a state in which the philosopher seeks a respite from the world he inhabits to recreate himself in what surrounds him. Rousseau strolls and develops a pleasure in observing plants, which exist because they are there and become a latent desire for him: the wish to purge what is not truly necessary in our lives. We witness his power of observation as we find ourselves doing the same, wisely guided by the author’s pen, thereby achieving a state of understanding with his difficult protagonist. Nightmares, memories, and darkness become pains as tangible as physical ones, and the philosopher becomes human on every page, turning into a contradictory, tormented person and, at times, almost a figure of pity. The isolation on the island is far from idyllic, since his neighbors seem to control every move, which in turn makes it impossible to forget the persecution he was facing and from which he sought refuge; just as the world cannot free itself from its chains, Rousseau cannot free himself from who he is. We encounter reflections scattered throughout the novel, some touching on sexuality in far more mundane terms than one might initially expect, joined with others that approach philosophy but evade the erudition one might have anticipated in this novel.
Sem-Sandberg makes use of a fragmented narrative and elegant prose to give a stronger sense of realism, leaving the reader with the impression of reading a time-limited biography of one of the most important names in modern philosophy, which shows in this book his most human side. Nightmares, surveillance, persecutions and (yes, I will echo the author and repeat it) urinary problems that offer a precise portrait of a man as admired as he is vilified.
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Author: Steve Sem-Sandberg. Title: The Ocean. Translation: Carmen Montes Cano. Publisher: Impedimenta. For sale: Todos tus libros.