Colin Wilson and The Outsider
In 1956, Colin Wilson published a book called 'The Outsider'. Which I feel is a book that everyone must read and re-read. Wilson explains of a feeling that arouse in him on a Christmas Day during 1954 where he felt that he was a character out of so many fictions. And his own identity was in an utter isolation.
The Outsider explores the psyche where we find ourselves in a sense of dislocation, or not in harmony with the context but at odds with the society.
Wilson explores many character from other well known piece of literature. Where the characters are given the premise of deeply insightful and lucid experience, which are shared and meaningful during the time of nihilism or gloominess. Jean Paul Sartre's philosophical novel Nausea also explores a similar context when the hero listens to a song in a cafe, which for a short time lifts him up, lifts his spirit but the context in an overall plot is not normalized.
The book is not shuttle but very expressive yet mysterious. Wilson himself is a very odd and abstract person. Which is clearly seen in 'The Outsider'. Which is his first and possibly the best work.
Wilson left school at the age of 16. He avoided the national service by claiming to be homosexual. (Which takes guts) He has also been hailed as the England's answer to Albert Camus. From fame to being ignored, Wilson is certainly an unique page in the book of world literature.
Osho somewhere explains that 'The Outsider' is a book to be read, not studied and thrown to the dustbin after that. Because he thinks that 'The Outside' is just an echo but not the sound. May be Osho is right because no other book from Wilson shows the same intensity and wisdom as 'The Outsider'. But we cannot deny the fact the Wilson is a person of tremendous intellect and charm.
Wilson has written books from crime, to mysticism to paranormal to cult to misunderstood conspiracy theory. He is too much to be something uniform. May be that is why he was misunderstood. He was ignored. And publishers asked him not to publish.
Wilson talks about his Wife Joy in an interview with the Guardian. Where he says she is an impenetrable virgin because he could never get in her mind. He explains her to be the peak experience of his life. Wilson has a straight forward intensity of expressions.
Wilson teaches us to swim against the current. The struggle and the firm structuring of the believe in the self. Somewhere in the same interview with the Guardian he says, "I regarded myself as the most important writer of the 20th century and I'd be a fool if I didn't know it, and a coward if I didn't say it. And I still feel that. With a little luck, the world will agree with me by the time I die."
The following is a quote from 'The Outsider',
"All men should possess a 'visionary faculty'. Men do not, because they live wrongly. They live too tensely, under too much strain, 'getting and spending'. But this loss of the visionary faculty is not entirely man's fault, it is partly the fault of the world he lives in, that demands that men should spend a certain amount of their time 'getting and spending' to stay alive. …The visionary faculty comes naturally to all men. When they are relaxed enough, every leaf of every tree in the world, every speck of dust, is a separate world capable of producing infinite pleasure. If these fail to do so, it is man's own fault for wasting his time and energy on trivialities. The ideal is the contemplative poet, the 'sage', who cares about having only enough money and food to keep him alive, and never takes thought for the morrow."
Here is an interview with Colin Wilson from the series 'Thinking Allowed'. This is a very profound interview.
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