Britain's first homegrown existentialist star, he failed to follow up the huge success of his 1956 book, The OutsiderFor a few dazzling months, Colin Wilson, who has died aged 82, was taken at his own valuation in his diary as "the major literary genius of our century", a writer destined to be "Plato's ideal sage and king". The phenomenal reviews and sales of his first book, The Outsider (1956), led him to be seen as a potential saviour of the human spirit, a thinker who might find a way through the spiritual nullity of the postwar years.The book remains extraordinary, more for its reach than its grasp. It was an attempt to map a single, negotiable path of mysticism from the span of recent western art and philosophy. Wilson looked for the path through case studies of the agonies and ecstasies of thinkers, artists and men of action including Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Vaslav Nijinsky, Vincent van Gogh, Hermann Hesse and Lawrence of Arabia. He condensed them into a single type, "the Outsider", a questing spirit straddled between devastating experiences of nothingness and moments of the highest insight."Our life in modern society is a repetition of Van Gogh's problem," Wilson said, "the day-to-day struggle for intensity that disappears overnight, interrupted by human triviality and endless pettiness." The book was excitingly written, with a sense of revelation. The failing, which took longer to emerge, was that it oversimplified... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-12-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Mon, 19/09/2011 - 11:32 Former children's laureate Jacqueline Wilson is the latest high-profile author to take part in a fundraising benefit in aid of Brent's six threatened libraries. Wilson will do the event at 6pm on 28th September at St Martin's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 11/04/2011 - 17:26 Orion has signed a memoir by golfer and Ryder Cup-winning captain Colin Montgomerie for publication this autumn. Publisher Alan Samson bought world rights to Monty from Guy Kinnings and Sarah Wooldridge at IMG. The book will be... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Caroline Horn Publication Date: Mon, 21/03/2011 - 15:36 Jacqueline Wilson is to write an updated version of E Nesbit's classic children's novel Five Children and It in a new deal with Puffin. Elv Moody, editorial director for Classic Puffin, and Alexandra Antscherl, Puffin senior... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Caroline Horn Publication Date: Thu, 03/03/2011 - 07:22 Former childrens laureate Michael Morpurgo and Tracy Beaker author Jacqueline Wilson have spoken out in support of the Guardians new book website for children, which launches today [3rd March] on World Book Day. The site,... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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