There is no weather like the cold to bring forth the significance of solitude. With the indoors beckon to comfort and warm beds, it is an understandable choice. To transition from this period of inner reflection or seasonal depression into the new semester, we supply you with a fruitful list of texts about solitude to bring you from hibernation.
Solitude is often misunderstood as dejected isolation, however, can be multi-faceted in its affective range, and many texts succeed in showcasing this.
Solitude as philosophy is quintessentially encapsulated in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; the text describes the writer’s quest for solitude in nature to confront the experience of life and to forge a connection between the individual and the universe. Whilst a cultural touchstone, the text is emblematic of a privileged absence from society and whilst intentional, can be unconvincing for its intangibilities. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George shares a naturistic solitude as it uses the adventure novel to supply a vision of solitude in self-reliance, survival and a quest for independence. In Tales of Fosterganj by Ruskin Bond, solitude is gentle, observational and tinged with nature and community, celebrating the quiet lives of rural hill-station residents.
Solitude often serves as a conduit for the existential in texts such as The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. The fisherman’s largely solitary struggle against nature allows for the text’s interrogation of human action as generator of value and meaning. The tragic absurdity of its conclusion via an incomplete victory shares qualities with other texts such as Jean Paul Sartre’s Nausea and Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. The former confronts a meaningless excess of existence whilst the latter treats solitude as an alienating result of a refusal to conform.
In Frankenstein, solitude is a construction upon the basis of systematic discrimination, wherein the monster enters nomadic hiding to preserve themselves against society’s bitter ignorance. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë depicts the moors as a wild and isolating landscape that mirrors the states of its protagonists, Catherine and Heathcliff; their solitude born of social exclusion, heartbreak and obsessive love. Dostoevsky’s White Nights collection delves into the difficulties of connection inside an urban environment – it is an exactness of dialogue that uncovers the uncomfortability of character interactions, as well as their solitude.
Elsewhere, in non-fictive literature, solitude persists as a thematic staple. Quiet by Susan Cain describes solitude as essential, arguing that it allows for creativity, deep thought and restoration. In her memoir My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh provides a new-age, extreme depiction of solitude as a drug-induced hibernation. Here, numb absentness allows escape via self-erasure alongside a rejection of discomfort. Lastly, for a local pick, Glasgow Poet Laureate Edwin Morgan provides an emotive reflection on the fickleness of Love, finding perseverance despite the solitude of companionship.
Illustration Via Jessica Bolevin @jessicadaisyillustration for The Student