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lananhngvu's review against another edition
3.0
The ideas are nice but they seem to be all over the place. Almost impossible to keep up with the flow of the book.
anotherpath's review against another edition
5.0
"The Outsider has his proper place in the Order of Society, as the impractical dreamer."
"These men are in prison: that is the Outsider's verdict. They are quite contented in prison--caged animals who have never known freedom; but it is a prison all the same."
"Then, as the Outsider's insight becomes deeper, so that he no longer sees men as a million million individuals, but instead sees the world-will that drives them all like ants in a formicary, he knows that they will never escape their stupidity and delusions, that no amount of logic and knowledge can make man any more than an insect; the most irritating of the human lice is the humanist with his puffed up pride in Reason and his ignorance of his own silliness."
"Humanism is only another method for spiritual laziness, or a vague half-creed adopted by men of science and logicians whose heads are too occupied with the world of mathematics and physics to worry about religious categories."
This is a book for bookish people. Bookish people of a certain type. It's mid-century, so Herman Hesse is about as modern as he covers within, but everyone he covered had me checking my collection and bumping up the urgency I have to read them, so interesting was the coverage.
Colin Wilson describes the Outsider and then attempts to give him a path forward. It's a challenging book in ways.
It's brilliant.
"These men are in prison: that is the Outsider's verdict. They are quite contented in prison--caged animals who have never known freedom; but it is a prison all the same."
"Then, as the Outsider's insight becomes deeper, so that he no longer sees men as a million million individuals, but instead sees the world-will that drives them all like ants in a formicary, he knows that they will never escape their stupidity and delusions, that no amount of logic and knowledge can make man any more than an insect; the most irritating of the human lice is the humanist with his puffed up pride in Reason and his ignorance of his own silliness."
"Humanism is only another method for spiritual laziness, or a vague half-creed adopted by men of science and logicians whose heads are too occupied with the world of mathematics and physics to worry about religious categories."
This is a book for bookish people. Bookish people of a certain type. It's mid-century, so Herman Hesse is about as modern as he covers within, but everyone he covered had me checking my collection and bumping up the urgency I have to read them, so interesting was the coverage.
Colin Wilson describes the Outsider and then attempts to give him a path forward. It's a challenging book in ways.
It's brilliant.
jacoboner's review against another edition
5.0
Kendini bilme ve kendini arama ile başlayan benlik serüveni duraklarından en büyüğü ‘Yabancı’ sorunudur, hem sorundur hem de sıçrayıştır. Eğer göçebe değil yerleşikseniz ve tinselliğiniz tanışmıyorsa beşeri yaşamınızla sorununuzun semptomları bu kitapta detaylıca yazılmıştır. Aynı zamanda var oluşunuzun kendi iç dinamiklerini görmek adına Albert Camus Yabancı’sı Jean Paul Sartre Bulantı’sı Dostoyevski Karamazov Kardeşler ve Ecinniler’ni Nietzsche Böyle Buyurdu Zerdüşt’ü v.b kaynaklar ile Varoluşçu şahsiyetlerin biyografik düşünsel dünyalarını bize ne tür bir yabancı ekseninde olduklarını net bir şekilde profillerini sunarak bu konunun öznel ve sosyal yönleriyle vermiştir üstat Colin Wilson. Aslında birçok eser okuduğumuzda yazarlar ya da filozoflar karakterler üzerinden ‘Yabancı’ mefhumunu bize ulaştırırlar, biz ise bu yolla varoluşumuzdaki buraya gelmek ile gitmek arasındaki basınca bir göz atarız. Sonrasında şu suali ortaya saçarız ‘Aslında bütün mesele neydi?’ (Genç akademisyen ve şair Zafer Ekin Karabay hayata veda ettiğinde yazdığı son mektupta bu soruyu sormuştur. Ç.n.)
Kitabın ilk cümlesi çok açıklayıcı ve yol göstericidir, bununla birlikte çok şey bulacağınızdan emin olun.
‘İlk bakışta, Yabancı toplumsal bir sorundur. Duvardaki deliktir o.’
Ve kitabı özetle yazar şunları bize aktarır; Yabancının sorunu, dünyayı ‘kötümser’ görmeye tekabül eder. Bu kötümserliğin doğru ve haklı olduğunu göstermeye çalıştım. Bu yüzdendir ki kötümserlik ‘ölmüş benliklerinin sıçrama tahtasına basarak yükseklere doğru’ ilerleyen insana dair hümanist idealleri alaşağı eder ve kendini bilmediği takdirde filozofun dünyayı bilmesinin bir anlamı olmadığını söyleyerek felsefeyi eleştirir. İdeal ‘nesnel felsefenin salt düşünürlerce değil, düşünür, şair ve eylem adamının birleştiren insanlar tarafından yaratılacağını söyler. Felsefenin ilk sorusu ‘Evren durup dururken nereden çıktı?’ değil ‘Hayatımızı nasıl yaşamalıyız?’ olmalıdır, amacı entelektüel olarak tutarlı bir sistem değil, bireyin kurtuluşu olmalıdır.
Son olarak Türk diline bu kitabın neden bu kadar geç girdiğini anlamış değilim. Yayınevi Notos’a ve çok başarılı çevirisini yapan Cihan Barış Özkan’a tekrar teşekkür ediyorum.
Kitabı sadece okumayı tavsiye etmiyorum. Hem okuyup hem üzerinde incelikli bir çalışma yapmanızı tavsiye ediyorum.
Kitabın ilk cümlesi çok açıklayıcı ve yol göstericidir, bununla birlikte çok şey bulacağınızdan emin olun.
‘İlk bakışta, Yabancı toplumsal bir sorundur. Duvardaki deliktir o.’
Ve kitabı özetle yazar şunları bize aktarır; Yabancının sorunu, dünyayı ‘kötümser’ görmeye tekabül eder. Bu kötümserliğin doğru ve haklı olduğunu göstermeye çalıştım. Bu yüzdendir ki kötümserlik ‘ölmüş benliklerinin sıçrama tahtasına basarak yükseklere doğru’ ilerleyen insana dair hümanist idealleri alaşağı eder ve kendini bilmediği takdirde filozofun dünyayı bilmesinin bir anlamı olmadığını söyleyerek felsefeyi eleştirir. İdeal ‘nesnel felsefenin salt düşünürlerce değil, düşünür, şair ve eylem adamının birleştiren insanlar tarafından yaratılacağını söyler. Felsefenin ilk sorusu ‘Evren durup dururken nereden çıktı?’ değil ‘Hayatımızı nasıl yaşamalıyız?’ olmalıdır, amacı entelektüel olarak tutarlı bir sistem değil, bireyin kurtuluşu olmalıdır.
Son olarak Türk diline bu kitabın neden bu kadar geç girdiğini anlamış değilim. Yayınevi Notos’a ve çok başarılı çevirisini yapan Cihan Barış Özkan’a tekrar teşekkür ediyorum.
Kitabı sadece okumayı tavsiye etmiyorum. Hem okuyup hem üzerinde incelikli bir çalışma yapmanızı tavsiye ediyorum.
vincentkonrad's review against another edition
3.0
I like his form of existentialism but I don't like reading long analyses of books, which this mostly is.
jon_gresham's review against another edition
4.0
I read this a long time ago at University (not a set text for Law/Economics) and loved it.
Rereading bits of it now, I shudder at the conceits of my youth! One idea for self flagellation that I shall get around to someday is to check my notes on the book made in 1986.
But I still like this book despite its many flaws, because it made me want to think and read more. Anyway, better play The Queen is Dead to relive more of those wonderful mid 80s moments.
Rereading bits of it now, I shudder at the conceits of my youth! One idea for self flagellation that I shall get around to someday is to check my notes on the book made in 1986.
But I still like this book despite its many flaws, because it made me want to think and read more. Anyway, better play The Queen is Dead to relive more of those wonderful mid 80s moments.
lookhome's review against another edition
5.0
The choice to live life more abundantly... To not only seek but to find a sensation of ecstasy in both bouts of creative energy and the minutiae of daily life... That is the outsider's goal, at the cost, perhaps, of happiness, comfort and even friendship....
The Outsider, written by a 24 year olf Colin Wilson, pre-internet, breaks down behaviour patterns that, he argues, seem to exist in both fictional accounts and real life embodiments of the 'Outsider'.
The books starts with a rough breakdown of the concept of the Outsider, making connections between Sartre, Camus, Hesse, Hemingway, Barbusse and Kafka, only to move onto T. E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Van Gogh and Vaslav Nijinsky (Ballet).
Throughout, Wilson provides surprising and insightful takes on the psychology of the Outsider and essentially breaks the Concept as being connected to a honing or sharpening of human intellectual, physical and spiritual understanding. Though often flawed in their drive to develop one of these traits, The Outsider wishes to develop and elaborate the Self into something that feels, understands and embraces the concept of Living. Outsiders can affirm life, or deny it as an illusion, but all of them at least attempt to fill and even cram it with a purpose of some sort.
The only weakness of the text is that it ends its inquiry in spiritual or religious undertakings when logically, it feels as though it should have then moved on to cults, which, at least in my humble opinion, combine the 'last stage of the outsider', i.e. a religious drive, the drive to become 'a prophet', with the social role found in the initial stage of an actual, physical sense of 'other'.
Quotes to follow...
The Outsider, written by a 24 year olf Colin Wilson, pre-internet, breaks down behaviour patterns that, he argues, seem to exist in both fictional accounts and real life embodiments of the 'Outsider'.
The books starts with a rough breakdown of the concept of the Outsider, making connections between Sartre, Camus, Hesse, Hemingway, Barbusse and Kafka, only to move onto T. E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Van Gogh and Vaslav Nijinsky (Ballet).
Throughout, Wilson provides surprising and insightful takes on the psychology of the Outsider and essentially breaks the Concept as being connected to a honing or sharpening of human intellectual, physical and spiritual understanding. Though often flawed in their drive to develop one of these traits, The Outsider wishes to develop and elaborate the Self into something that feels, understands and embraces the concept of Living. Outsiders can affirm life, or deny it as an illusion, but all of them at least attempt to fill and even cram it with a purpose of some sort.
The only weakness of the text is that it ends its inquiry in spiritual or religious undertakings when logically, it feels as though it should have then moved on to cults, which, at least in my humble opinion, combine the 'last stage of the outsider', i.e. a religious drive, the drive to become 'a prophet', with the social role found in the initial stage of an actual, physical sense of 'other'.
Quotes to follow...
jaime00's review against another edition
5.0
I can firmly say this is now my favourite non-fiction book. Wilson manages what most (non-fiction) writers struggle with: presenting their idea in a comprehensible way.
I've always been really sceptical and disappointed with books who allude this subject but this one is definitely a life-changer (for me).
Will definitely be picking up more books from this author as soon as I can!
I've always been really sceptical and disappointed with books who allude this subject but this one is definitely a life-changer (for me).
Will definitely be picking up more books from this author as soon as I can!
cmcrockford's review against another edition
5.0
Problematic moments in keeping for a book from 1956 (not including Wilson's statement that Blake was not a great painter) but this is a pretty staggering piece of philosophy and psychology. Frankly this felt incredibly personal to me while reading as well. Wilson seems to have captured a huge amount of my own personality, beliefs, and interests through his survey of the Outsider: my interest in belief and disbelief, despair over suffering, having moments of ecstasy that seem to suggest greater experience and vision, etc. I've felt and experienced all of these signifiers, these universal moments that build into an archetype, and it's rare and profound to feel so linked to an author's work but...here we are. Reading this book has given me a sense of strange clarity and potentially a way forward. Nice thing to get out of only 302 pages.