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Dreaming to Some Purpose: The Autobiography of Colin Wilson
by
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson is the bete-noir of the Oxbridge literary establishment. He never went to university, let alone Oxbridge, yet wrote
The Outsider
, a brilliant account of the pain of being alive today, when he was just twenty-four. It sold millions of copies around the world, and he was acclaimed as one of the leading intellectuals of the age, finding a huge audience with the a
...more
Hardcover
,
416 pages
Published
May 26th 2004
by Century
(first published October 1969)
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Community Reviews
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Colin Wilson has lived a colourful and full life, and he is blessed with a good memory and a candid writing style.
If he had gone through with his implusive decision to commit suicide at the age to 16 what a loss that would have been to the literary world.
Fortunately Colin decided that to study science was less painful than killing himself. As I scientist I feel I should not comment on the wisdom of that choice. But anyway, a short spell of National Service soon knocked all that nonsense out of h ...more
If he had gone through with his implusive decision to commit suicide at the age to 16 what a loss that would have been to the literary world.
Fortunately Colin decided that to study science was less painful than killing himself. As I scientist I feel I should not comment on the wisdom of that choice. But anyway, a short spell of National Service soon knocked all that nonsense out of h ...more
The most striking feature of this book is that it makes it clear I don't really like Colin Wilson. I first heard about him at the melbourne existential society via Howard Dosser, who features in this auto biography and impressed me as an excellent speaker and philosopher. The main problem I find in dealing with Wilson's ideas is the question of class. Dosser inspired me with 'overcoming' in his descriptions of not letting class identity limit anyone in what they might wish to do. In the spirit o
...more
Jan 21, 2014
Arwa
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biography-autobiography
يجب أن يُحمّل الكاتب سيرته الذاتيه بالأسرار ويكون صادقًا أمينًا في روايته أحداثَ حياته إذا ما أراد أن يكون للسيرة وزنها. وهذا ما حدث هنا بل ربما أكثر من اللازم حتى وجدتني أمقت شخصيته رغم أنها ليست هو بالضرورة. شخصية ويلسون كما رأيتُها في السيرة الذاتية كانت متعالية مغرورة لم تكن تختلف كثيرًا عن الشباب العادي سوى بحبه الشديد للقراءة ومن ثم توليته اهتمامًا شديدًا بالأحاسيس والأحداث العابرة والتي ما كان سيُلقي رجلٌ مغمور بها اهتمامًا.
يعكس الكتاب صورة المجتمع الإنكليزي بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية بشك ...more
يعكس الكتاب صورة المجتمع الإنكليزي بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية بشك ...more
This man has an amazing mind, thoroughly enjoyed this book.
I thought I had reviewed this already?
OK last one.
Colin Wilson is an amazing thinker and this book is about his early somewhat bohemian years. Needing money. Needing sex. Needing a reason to live. And I think then he wrote about it and became famous. I actually haven't read any of his real books. He autographed this for me and that was pretty cool considering I'd worked here for like two weeks at the time.
He has great style and a vast mind.
OK last one.
Colin Wilson is an amazing thinker and this book is about his early somewhat bohemian years. Needing money. Needing sex. Needing a reason to live. And I think then he wrote about it and became famous. I actually haven't read any of his real books. He autographed this for me and that was pretty cool considering I'd worked here for like two weeks at the time.
He has great style and a vast mind.
The outsider philsopher/crank's autobiography. The early years are scandalous fun, as he rises and falls from mainstream success and attempts to transit from an inwardly focussed, working class life through sudden literary superstardom to some sort of working relationship with life. It geets less interesting as he settles into domesticity and a lifetime of toying with fringe ideas.
This is the autobiography an original mind who, without formal training, wrote mostly about ideas from an unconventional, intelligent and psychologically adventurous expereince of life. I think its in here he suggests: "the idea is not to escape reality but to create it".
May 18, 2013
Peter Humphreys
added it
I have read it twice and enjoy reading of his quest for knowledge and over the years have found numerous new authors via his books. Recommended read for Colin Wilson aficionado's a truly unique British self educated voice.
جميل و لكن أعيب عليه جفافه العاطفي خاصة مع البنت اللي كان ماشي معاها عشان ينام معاها لا أكثر بيحسسني ان المراءة أداة منفعة جنسية لا أكثر و لكن يشفع ليه عمق تحليله
A memoir of erudition, spooky sex and strangeness
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Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Her
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More about Colin Wilson...
“إن سعادة قائد عظيم أنقذ بلاده هي تمامًا نفس السعادة التي تشعر بها فتاة ترقص رقصتها الأولى.”
—
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