The Outsider (Colin Wilson)
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| The Outsider | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Cover of a recent edition |
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| Author | Colin Wilson |
| Original title | The Outsider |
| Cover artist | Thom Dower |
| Country | United Kingdom  |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Philosophy |
| Genre(s) | Existentialism |
| Publication date | 1956 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 302 |
| ISBN | 0-87477-206-0 |
| Followed by | Religion and the Rebel |
The Outsider is a non-fiction book by Colin Wilson first published in 1956[1].
Through the works and lives of various artists - including H. G. Wells (Mind at the End of its Tether), Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Harley Granville-Barker (The Secret Life), Herman Hesse, T. E. Lawrence, Vincent Van Gogh, Vaslav Nijinsky, George Bernard Shaw, William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoevsky and G. I. Gurdjieff - Wilson explores the psyche of the Outsider, his effect on society, and society's effect on him.
[edit] Summary
The book is still published with enthusiastic comments from the likes of Edith Sitwell and Cyril Connolly adorning its cover (Connolly later admitted he hadn't read it)[citation needed]. This reception - of his first book at the age of 24 - was a high critical watermark for Wilson, a reputation that sank as fast as it had rocketed.[2] It is still, however, an insightful work of literary and philosophical criticism - a timeless preoccupation which perhaps garners more mainstream attention than his subsequent writings on the occult and crime[citation needed]. The book is structured in such a way as to mirror the outsider's[clarification needed] experience: a sense of dislocation, or of being at odds with society. These are figures like Dostoevsky's "Insect-Man" who seem to be lost to despair and non-transcendence with no way out.
More successful - or at least hopeful - characters are then brought to the fore. These include Steppenwolf and even the hero of Hesse's book of the same name - and these are presented as examples of those who have insightful moments of lucidity in which they feel as though things are worthwhile/meaningful amidst their shared, usual, experience of nihilism and gloom. Sartre's Nausea is herein the key text - and the moment when the hero listens to a song in a cafe which momentarily lifts his spirits is the outlook on life to be normalized. Wilson then engages in some detailed case studies of artists who failed in this task and tries to understand their weakness - which is either intellectual, of the body or of the emotions. The final chapter is Wilson's attempt at a "great synthesis" in which he justifies his belief that western philosophy is afflicted with a needless "pessimistic fallacy" - a narrative he continues throughout his oeuvre under various names (St. Neot Margin for example) and illustrated in several metaphors ("every day is Christmas day").
[edit] Chapters
- The Country of the Blind
- World Without Values
- The Romantic Outsider
- The Attempt To Gain Control
- The Pain Threshold
- The Question of Identity
- The Great Synthesis . . .
- The Outsider As Visionary
- Breaking the Circuit
[edit] References
- ^ "The Outsider". J.P. Tarcher. http://isbndb.com/d/book/the_outsider_a08.html. Retrieved 22 March 2009.
- ^ Wilson, Colin (2005). "Backlash". Dreaming to Some Purpose. Arrow Books. ISBN 0099471477.
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