A Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits and Solitaries

This is a well written exploration of the solitary life. Isabel Colegate uses her novelist's skills to imagine what might lead people to retreat into solitude. Religious ideals, political exile and romantic heartbreak are just few of the reasons she finds in her ambitious biography of famous hermits and hermitages. Despite the sad endings of more than quite a few hermits, the author demonstrates the joy that being alone can bring. Reading this work makes me ask, "Where's my grotto?"

It is nice to occasionally find a book that resonates at the same frequency as one's own soul. In my case, it was this perceptive and extremely well written study of hermits, solitaries, and recluses. It is not often in our modern world that the possibility, and legitimacy, of a solitary existance is examined in a sympathetic manner. I do not think that I've seen a more comprehensive study of the phenomenon of the solitary lifestyle (Chinese and Tibetan hermits, the desert fathers, medieval anchorites, monastic and hermit religious orders, wandering holy men from Ireland to Russia, shamans, the pastoral posers of the 18th century, American mountain men, the New England transcendentalists, eccentric noblemen, classical Stoics, Romantic poets, conservationists- even Howard Hughs!) Clearly, this is a topic that resonates with the author too, but then as a writer that would seem only natural (i.e., she is a member of what has traditionally been considered the solitary profession.) She clearly understands the various motivations that come to drive individuals to a solitary existance, both voluntarily and involuntarily (love of nature, inspiration, world weariness, high sensitivity, preservation of the poetic ego, scopophobia, religious dedication, and the desire to find union with the Divine itself....)

It is nice to occasionally find a book that resonates at the same frequency as one's own soul. In my case, it was this perceptive and extremely well written study of hermits, solitaries, and recluses. It is not often in our modern world that the possibility, and legitimacy, of a solitary existance is examined in a sympathetic manner. I do not think that I've seen a more comprehensive study of the phenomenon of the solitary lifestyle (Chinese and Tibetan hermits, the desert fathers, medieval anchorites, monastic and hermit religious orders, wandering holy men from Ireland to Russia, shamans, the pastoral posers of the 18th century, American mountain men, the New England transidentalists, eccentric noblemen, classical Stoics, Romantic poets, conservationists- even Howard Hughs!) Clearly, this is a topic that resonates with the author too, but then as a writer that would seem only natural (i.e., she is a member of what has traditionally been considered the solitary profession.) She clearly understands the various motivations that come to drive individuals to a solitary existance, both voluntarily and involuntarily (love of nature, inspiration, world weariness, high sensitivity, preservation of the poetic ego, scopophobia, religious dedication, and the desire to find union with the Divine itself....)

We don't think much of loners; it is a word of suspicion. Loners arethose racist militia men or pedophiles. We are social creaturesand we have intimate relationships with a few, friendships withmany, and interactions with a legion. And yet there have beensolitary souls throughout history who are odd but not malevolent,and it is easy to sympathize with them. "The idea of the hermit'slife - simplicity, devotion, closeness to nature - lurks somewhereon the periphery of most people's consciousness, a way glimpsed,oddly familiar, not taken." So writes Isabel Colgate in _A Pelicanin the Wilderness: Hermits, Solitaries, andRecluses_ (Counterpoint). As the subtitle shows, there are manyvariations on the means and reasons by which people take themselvesaway to themselves, and Colgate has provided a widely inclusivediscussion of the phenomenon.Colgate is a novelist, and her abilityto write with sympathy about these loners makes her cheerful book adelight to read. One instance after another of individual oddityspills from her pages. Gilbert White, the famousclergyman-naturalist of Selborne in Kent, built a thatchedhermitage and installed his brother there as a hermit, at least forpicnics. If the owner had enough money not only for a hermitagebut also for a hermit, he could hire one. In the eighteenthcentury, Charles Hamilton hired a hermit, specified how he woulddress, how he must not cut his hair or nails, and how he must neverspeak. The hermit would have been paid 700 guineas for a sevenyear hitch, but lasted only three weeks before sneaking off tothe local pub. Mrs. Pobjoy was Beau Nash's last mistress in Bath,and after his death in 1761 she moved into a hollow trunk andstayed there until she died, perhaps from poverty and perhaps froma broken heart. A contemporary "dendrite" was Julia ButterflyHill, who climbed a redwood in California in 1997 to save the treefrom a logging company. She stayed up it for two years, enduringbad weather, hassles from security guards, and legal battles, butthe logging company eventually admitted defeat. Hermitsseek privacy, but often do something useful to make their living,like tending herbal gardens, keeping bees, and (in the case of acontemporary hermit Colgate interviews) painting heraldicdevices.The span of Colgate's research is delightful. She coverscelebrity solitaries, like J. D. Salinger, Howard Hughes, andThoreau. Notables like Andrew Jackson, Louis XIV, Peter the Great,and the Spanish emperor Charles V built grand buildings calledhermitages, and removed themselves there without austerity. Enkiduwas a kind of hermit before befriended by Gilgamesh. There was ahermit pope in the middle ages, or rather Peitro de Maroni wasthought to be such a holy hermit that he was made pope, and was somiserable that he lasted at the post only four years before hewas allowed to retire and resume isolation. The Catalan architectAntonio Gaudi lived as a hermit in the last fifteen years of hislife beneath the unfinish