Juan Arnau is a prolific writer, with nearly thirty books published over two decades. His work spans Buddhism, Hinduism, Vedic literature, cosmology, medicine, and Indian culture at large. He has translated Sanskrit texts directly into Spanish on several occasions. Recently, he presented a work under discussion: Rousseau or Maiden Grass: an essay between literature and philosophy? Is it a synthesis of Geneva’s brilliant biographical moments? Or a distillation of Rousseau’s personality shaped to extract a herbal essence that speaks to the receptive mind?
This is not the first time the Benares Hindu University–educated thinker has turned his gaze toward the West. He has examined Spinoza, Berkeley, and Leibniz—a trio of philosophical figures treated through a narrative lens. Perhaps this approach arises from Arnau’s contrast between Eastern mysticism and Western rationalism, two strands of thought he sees as mutually illuminating. The result is a thoughtful, nuanced comparison that invites readers to weigh different modes of knowing.
In 2005, Arnau was a finalist for the Anagrama Essay Award with Rendir el sentido. Philosophy and translation (2008). Here he tackles translation itself as a central philosophical issue, especially the untranslatability that languages reveal—an issue also discussed by Benjamin and Wittgenstein. He returns to one of his recurring interests, meaning before syntax and semantics, exploring Hindu meditation, desires, and the cognitive processes of perception, memory, and imagination. His The History of Imagination (2020) was a finalist for the 2019 Espasa Essay Prize, and in 2015 he reached the National Essay Award final as a popularizer of philosophy. Portable Handbook of Philosophy (2014) is another notable work in this line.
Turning to the present book, one wonders why the title evokes Rousseau through a plant, the “maiden herb.” The path to understanding is not straightforward; it is intentionally open, not conceptually closed. On page 27, a clue appears in Madame de Warens’ exclamation: “Look at the virgin grass still blooming.” The young, myopic lover cannot fully grasp it, yet this moment marks a path: a future devotion to botany, a love for music, and the companionship of protective, sensitive women in solitude.
The title captures the mood in which the work was written. It is neither a strict biographical account nor an orderly presentation of Rousseau’s thoughts. Rather, it offers a curated set of foundational ideas, woven into a narrative through biography. The key aim is to portray a mind that does not conform to typical Enlightenment patterns, whose rationality intertwines egalitarian and individualist sentiments with liberal and Romantic vitalism. The emotional texture in Rousseau’s Pedagogy of Virtue and in The New Heloise, together with the broader historical logic of the Discourse on the Inequality of Men, coexists in the universalist ethos of the Social Contract as refracted through Arnau’s interpretation.
In the book’s presentation, Arnau seeks to preserve a portrait that reveals two facets of Rousseau rather than settling on a single concept: what one might call a Janus-like figure. The most significant thread, however, lies in the emotional responses Rousseau provoked and the paths those feelings opened. This is where the author’s task comes alive: sketching the personality of a thinker who, at times, opposed the fashionable currents of his time while producing powerful prose on education, freedom, and society. The New Heloise, celebrated for its female virtues within the era, sits alongside a portrayal of a mind at odds with fashionable salons and political factions. The dynamic tension between Rousseau’s affectionate stance toward childhood and his critiques of civilization remains a central hinge of Arnau’s portrait.
A figure both admired and contested, Rousseau stood apart from the era’s aristocratic circles. He dressed differently, preferred a pastoral slope over urban bustle, and refused to accept civilization as mere progress. Women seemed to understand him more readily than men, perhaps because of his sensitivity to education and liberty. While he inspired literary works that celebrated feminine virtues, he also faced friction with contemporaries like Diderot and Hume, and strained rapport with Voltaire after a provocative jab at returning humanity to its baser state. Arnau’s portrayal emphasizes the humanizing details of Rousseau’s contradictions—flaws, genius, and a restless search for meaning—so that readers encounter a fully realized, imperfect person rather than a one-note icon.
With this nuanced depiction, Arnau crafts an impressionistic, vividly colored panorama that blends the intimate with the controversial. The portrait reveals a creator who challenged conventional progress, who could be both generous in his ideals and sharp in his disagreements. The result is a portrayal that resists easy categorization and invites readers to reflect on how Rousseau’s thought continues to resonate in discussions of education, equality, and political legitimacy. This synthesis of personal temperament and public philosophy gives the reader a richer sense of Rousseau’s enduring influence, beyond the confines of a straightforward biographical sketch.
Arnau’s approach keeps the spotlight on Rousseau’s emotional and intellectual responses, rather than merely cataloging doctrines. The result is an accessible yet substantial meditation on how a single life can illuminate a broad spectrum of ideas. A portrait that acknowledges both the brilliance and the blemishes of its subject, it presents a persuasive case for Rousseau as a thinker whose influence extends far beyond his era, shaping debates on education, liberty, and social justice to this day.
In this sense, the book offers a thoughtful bridge between literature and philosophy, inviting readers to reconsider what they know about Rousseau and to appreciate how a life can illuminate a theory as a living, evolving conversation rather than a fixed doctrine. [Citation: Arnau’s interpretation of Rousseau and the Maiden Grass, as discussed in contemporary literary-philosophical analyses].