Isn't personal enough and not enough personal stories
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
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Have you ever noticed when some crazy nut goes on a killing spree and all the newspapers and TV stations go ask their neighbours and family for interviews they always, always describe them as “…a quiet loner who kept himself to himself.” I even saw an interview where they described the murder as “a quiet loner with a family and three kids.”!!!
So going by that logic mad gunmen are loners, does that make all loners potential killers? Obviously not but on a more sub-conscious level loners are given a very raw deal. I see myself as a ‘part time loner’ (didn’t Stevie Wonder write a song with that title?). I love my friends and I like going to work to talk to them and see how they’re getting on and I would never survive on a desert island without them. But other times where I can read my latest book, meditating and practice yoga or simply just to look on ciao and read the latest reviews. Maybe that’s why it struck a cord in me.
But its not only for complete or quasi-loners but also for people who know someone close to them who is a loner and maybe they need to read this to understand them better. Or maybe just not to feel so afraid of being alone. Or you need to look at loner’s and their places in culture society, the world.
The cover itself is a clever inversion of the often used “black sheep” metaphor. With a startlingly white sheep and the dark background, it already projects itself as something different, something apart something special and something that needs to be thought about to be properly understood (rather like loners themselves).
One of the things coming away from reading this book is, ironically, a sense of being less alone, less of a minority and certain collectiveness (albeit a distant together). Besides loners are never the ones to get together somewhere because they dislike get-togethers!
The book show us loners are everywhere, they are in each far corner of the world and loners exist because they seep through like water in loose gravel. The book goes through the many different facets of loners lives, in a very personal and public way. Letting people in on a secret world that they have never appreciated.
There are brilliant chapters about loners and communities; Rufus talks about Africa where it is difficult to do anything without a commune spirit being a loner is considered a sickness. Or Japan, a country who wear their conformism, mob mentality and avoid standing out as a badges of honour. There’s even a ‘proper’ way to hand out business cards (with both hands). “ijme” is the word they used for being pointed out because your different. But even here there spawns individuals who will want to live their lives their way or through “Hikikomori” meaning social withdrawal. Where Japanese people lock themselves in their bedrooms and only come out at night to raid the fridge or to leave post it notes saying “get me a computer magazine”. They even have outreach centres for such people.
Some may read this paragraph and feel sad. That was my initial reaction to reading it in this book; but my second was admiration; admiration for the courage to not suppress their lonerism and individuality. People would often consider such extraordinary lengths extreme and may make them uncomfortable, but why? In a world with reality TV, where everything is exposed and everybody wants to be known by everyone does the thought of someone having their own little space, their own little piece of privacy and their own thoughts become so alien. Unfortunately that’s the world we live in but the irony is the most famous artist in the world is a loner, Michael Jackson is so reclusive, that lines between what is fact and fictitious about him has become blurred. But the irony doesn’t stop there, John Lennon or Kurt Cobain, and just recently Aretha Franklin.
Loners seem to be the most artistic and creative people of all, and especially novelists, the author devotes a whole chapter to them. Maybe such a solitary subjective pursuit as writing is ideal for a novelist. One of my favourite excerpts of the book talks about J.D. Salinger who after experience the huge success of the first edition of the Catcher on the Rye refused to have his picture used on the back of the books, hiding away from interviews. It is even said that a neighbour came around one afternoon collecting for a local charity and Salinger came out with a shotgun and told her “Just leave me alone”.
Another brilliant chapter highlights loners, or semi loners like me, ideas on friendship, love and sex. Its not that there is an aversion to it, far from it, but a stricter, tougher criteria must be met for friendship. Maybe each of us should have a look at the criteria for being friends with someone, it doesn’t mean we have more friends, it means we have less friends, but friends of better value. Who can give the support, love, and especially the space loner’s need. The same goes for love, would you rather have 10 crap or rubbish relationships and then find your soulmate or would you prefer to skip the crappy relationships?
Yet even after being this positive I am left with the feeling of wanting more and of incompleteness. And I am unsure if its because I love the book so much I don’t want it to end (like a great song or movie) or do I want to know more about the author herself and more personal stories about other loners. I think it’s probably both; but more the former than the latter.
If you want a small glimpse into the lives of loners, and a little glimpse into mine, the closest thing without becoming a loner themselves is to read this book. I wish I could arrange a party and give this book to my nearest and dearest so I could bridge a few gaps between us.
And if you are a loner yourself you can gladly proclaim that its your quirkiness and your lonerism that makes you special not defective. There are so many different angles explored in this book I only wanted to tell you of the ones that had made the biggest impression on me.
This book is a like a city landmark in a town of different niche groups that has to be acknowledged and accepted as part of the social landscape, and what a beautiful part it is.
So take a chance on this thought provoking book and open your mind. You will not regret it!
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