Michael Ignatieff, On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times

Excerpt

At the heart of Michael Ignatieff’s excellent new book is the proposal that consolation comes through reconciliation with our failures and limitations. This apparently simple idea, which in essence means accepting that our lives are imperfect and finite, turns out to be highly compelling. Ignatieff, whose readable style is the craft of an experienced broadcaster and writer, is himself a remarkably versatile figure who has had much success across a wide range of fields. His impressive bibliography includes novels, screenplays, dramatic works, and many works of non-fiction, which include European history, international politics, and a biography of his mentor Isaiah Berlin. He has been professor of history at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and the University of Toronto, where he also taught law and political science. Yet, as a senior politician in Canada, Ignatieff experienced humiliation as leader of the Liberal Party, which he guided to that party’s electoral ruin in 2011. This public chastening is only implicitly referenced in the book but, as he admits, one of the great gifts of getting older is that the illusion that you are somehow special falls away as time presses relentlessly onwards and death becomes somehow more familiar. …