The Outsider

I recently read Colin Wilson’s seminal book, The Outsider, which is billed as “The Classic Study of Alienation, Creativity, and the Mind of Modern Man.” It does remind me of the time of my life when I was reading a lot of existentialist writers, in college. Wilson analyzes many of my favorite writers and thinkers: Camus, Sartre, Elliot, Hemingway, Hesse, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Blake, Kierkegaard, Shaw. I must say that it inspires me to dust off a couple of books that have been gathering dust on shelves: The Devils by Dostoevsky (which is discussed in length here) and Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann (which is supposed to be based on Nietzsche). Wilson is obviously well read and makes some interesting conclusions and draws other interesting parallels between the different writers and thinkers.