The Substance of Silence: A Reading List About Hermits

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Photo: Bruce Yuanyue Bi/Getty Images

Call them recluses, hermits, or even solitudinarians, examples of folk choosing to live a life apart from their fellow humans are as old as the written word. Many, but not all, of these ancient hermits were motivated by spiritual reasons; in medieval times, anchoresses and anchorites volunteered to be physically sealed into stone chambers abutting churches or monasteries, providing themselves with a literal barrier from the world. Such intentional isolation, in the religious sphere, is often associated with profound wisdom and spiritual pureness — qualities said to arise from a renunciation of material comforts. Hermits have never been confined to the theological world, however. There have always been instances of “ordinary” people living purposefully solitary existences, be it in the remote wilderness or amid the hustle and bustle of modern cities.

To some of us, the idea of such isolation seems terrifying. To others, the thought of an extended period of peace and quiet, a chance to step back and reconnect with ourselves, holds an undeniable appeal. How many of us, though, would be comfortable with the notion of living in solitude for weeks, months, years, even decades? It has long been held that humans are social creatures, and mental health experts are quick to warn against the debilitating effects of loneliness. But weighted against this are numerous stories of those who have discovered great solace in the solitary life.

What remains inarguable is that our fascination with those who chose to live a life removed endures to this day. How can someone exist in this manner, we feel compelled to ask, and why would they choose to do so, considering (or perhaps because of) the modern world’s affordances? The articles curated below delve deep into the mysterious and compelling world of hermits, and surface with some surprising, even moving answers to that very question.

Day of a Stranger (Thomas Merton, Hudson Review, July 1967)

The writer, theologian, social activist, and monk Thomas Merton makes for an unlikely example of a maverick, but certainly that is how he was regarded among many of his peers in the Christian faith. Merton was born in France, his father a New Zealand-born painter, his mother an American Quaker and artist. The family soon settled in the United States, where Merton would eventually enter into the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Catholic monastery in Kentucky. For the last few years of his life he lived alone as a hermit within the Abbey grounds.

For a comprehensive history of Merton’s life and works, together with audio samples and much more, visit the website of The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University.

A gentle, peaceful character with a deeply poetic soul, Merton was a man ahead of his time, a proponent of interfaith understanding during an era in which such an enterprise could be considered provocative, even heretical. Merton engaged in spiritual dialogue with the Dalai Lama, esteemed Japanese Buddhist D. T. Suzuki, and Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, doing much to bring these figures and their philosophies to the attention of the Western world. His 1948 autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, caused a seismic shift in the collective consciousness of the American public. In the piece below, the theologian himself writes with moving simplicity, eloquence, and passion on the solitary life and the madness of the modern world.

One might say I had decided to marry the silence of the forest. The sweet dark warmth of the whole world will have to be my wife. Out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.

The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit (Michael Finkel, GQ, August 2014)

Many of us, I suspect, have experienced a disconnect during a social encounter, whether it be because of a generational gap, a difference in socioeconomic backgrounds, or because the person with whom you are communicating hails from an entirely different part of the globe, with an unfamiliar language and unknown customs. In today’s hyper-connected world, however, it’s almost impossible not to find commonalities of experience. Most of us share the same daily concerns, and the majority are aware of significant global and cultural events. Imagine, however, that you had intentionally cut yourself off from “history” for close to three decades. What would it be like to find yourself thrust back into society, forced to live among people with whom you share little to no common ground?

A 23-minute documentary on Christopher Knight, The True Legend of the North Pond Hermit, by filmmaker and actress Lena Friedrich, is free to watch via Vimeo.

This is exactly what happened to Christopher Knight, who spent 27 years living in a tent in the wilderness in Maine, only venturing forth at night to steal food and other items necessary for his survival, before his eventual capture and arrest. What followed, as recounted in this article, tells us much about the modern world, but perhaps the most fascinating element here is the question of exactly why Knight disappeared into the woods, and why he never willingly returned. In order to discover more about the man and his story, writer Michael Finkel had to gain the trust, and eventual friendship of sorts, of a man who could barely recall how to communicate with his fellow humans, or tolerate such interaction for long. Finkel writes movingly of his efforts and emotions during this process.

“I don’t know your world,” he said. “Only my world, and memories of the world before I went into the woods. What life is today? What is proper? I have to figure out how to live.” He wished he could return to his camp—”I miss the woods”—but he knew by the rules of his release that this was impossible. “Sitting here in jail, I don’t like what I see in the society I’m about to enter. I don’t think I’m going to fit in. It’s too loud. Too colorful. The lack of aesthetics. The crudeness. The inanities. The trivia.”

The Peculiar Case of a Modern-Day Hermit (Paul Willis, Vice, November 2015)

In this essay, writer Paul Willis chronicles a time in his life when he felt driven to escape a hectic New York existence — not just to experience the hermit life, but to reconcile the contrasting views of the phenomenon itself. Why is it, he asks, that although psychologists have long been aware of the mental health risks of isolation, stories persist of individuals thriving in such conditions? Could it be that some of us are simply more suited to a solitary existence? Moreover, if humans are social creatures, why do many hermits report feelings of profound peace, freedom, and oneness arising from a life bereft of social interaction?

To attempt to answer these questions, Willis headed out in search of Arizona’s ghost towns, abandoned relics of the mid-1800’s copper rush, and the hermits rumored to inhabit them. In our minds, recluses tend to fall into one of two categories — those with a tragic backstory, deserving of our compassion and understanding, and those who are perfectly content with their solitary lives, whose privacy we dare not interfere with. In the person of Virgil Snyder, Willis finds a soul who seems to exhibit both extremes. Everyone has a story; this is a cliché, but also a truth. Who we are now is the culmination of the events that have shaped our history. Virgil Snyder’s story is as touching and troubling as it is commonplace. Perhaps that is exactly what makes him so interesting.

His beard was shorter than in the photo and he wore a grey pullover that hung limp over his sleight frame. He wanted to know if I had brought him beer and when I told him I had, he said he knew he liked me from the moment he saw me. I told him about a woman I met in Cleator, who had told me she thought Virgil was more free than anyone she knew. He shrugged and said he couldn’t care less what others thought.

Mystery Man: Will Anyone Ever Know the Real Story Behind the Leatherman? (Jon Campbell, Village Voice, June 2015)

Hermits have always been considered mysterious, unpredictable, even dangerous. This speaks to our innate fear of difference. How can we trust someone who refuses to live a “normal” life? The reality, of course, is that those who live in “civilized” society, dressing to our standards and abiding by our ways, are no more or less likely to prove treacherous. Nevertheless, hermits, by wont of their unconventionality, continue to be figures of enduring fascination, attracting distrust and curiosity in equal measure.

Read an interview with Dan DeLuca about his book, The Old Leather man.

In this article, Jon Campbell meets a man obsessed with unknotting the riddle of one such character: the “Leatherman,” who, over a 30-year period in the mid-to-late 1800s, caused such a stir in the northeastern United States that stories and myths pertaining to him endure to this day. The Leatherman story reveals much about our need to understand the hermit’s motives and thoughts. What we don’t know about someone, we are likely to invent, and so it is proven here. Will we ever know the truth? Perhaps the real question at the heart of the Leatherman legend is why we remain so driven to find out.

Leatherman was frequently described in newspaper accounts as intelligent. His eyes would light up as if he understood what people said to him; he simply chose not to respond. Recently some researchers have posited the idea that Leatherman may have fallen somewhere along the autism spectrum. They cite as evidence his obvious discomfort around people, his rigid adherence to a schedule, his meticulous craftsmanship.

The Oracle of Oyster River (Brian Payton, Hakai Magazine, September 2018)

The subject of this piece by journalist Brian Payton is an extraordinary man named Charles Brandt. At the time of the writing of this piece, Brandt, a Catholic priest, had been living in his self-made hermitage off Canada’s Pacific Coast for nearly 50 years. Despite this isolation, Brandt kept in touch with the world on his own terms, working as a writer, naturalist, ornithologist, and book conservator. What makes this story especially poignant is that Brandt’s personal journey was very much inspired by the author of the first entry on this list, Thomas Merton — a beautiful circularity. So large has Merton’s influence been on Brandt that the latter even named his hermitage Merton House. The two men even met once, at the Abbey of Gethsemani, before Brandt settled into his island home.

It is fascinating to see that, unlike many of the other hermits on this list, Brandt managed to find a balance, enjoying a life of peace, meditation, and quiet reflection, while still engaging with society in vital ways. His work preserving treasured books, and seeking to preserve the natural ecology he treasured to an even greater extent, is as moving as it is inspiring.

“We really have to fall in love with the natural world”—this is Brandt’s refrain. To save something you need to love it, to love something you need to consider it sacred, he says. “Your wife or your children or the natural world. Only the sense of the sacred will save us.”

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Chris Wheatley is a writer and journalist based in Oxford, UK. He has too many guitars, too many records, and not enough cats.

Editor: Peter Rubin
Copy Editor: Cheri Lucas Rowlands

September 8, 2022

Categories: culture, History, Nonfiction, Reading List, Story, Uncategorized

Tags: essays, Faith, Solitude

More Than a Feeling: A Blues Reading List

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Chris Wheatley

B.B. King performs onstage in 1979 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

By Chris Wheatley

“Before Elvis there was nothing,” John Lennon famously once said about his own musical awakening — but, as Presley himself frequently acknowledged, there would have been no Elvis without the blues. It’s no exaggeration to state that the blues underpins almost all modern music. Beyoncé, Kanye, Ed Sheeran: None of these artists would exist without it, and the musical ancestors of all three can be precisely traced back to the Deep South of the United States during the antebellum period.

But what exactly is the blues? We know it when we hear it, thanks to certain definable musical elements like chord progressions, yet arguments still exist as to the ancestry, lineage, and “true” nature of the genre. It’s an art form wrapped in myth and mythology, from the otherworldly provenance of Robert Johnson’s sublime gifts to Afro-Christian notions of evil and the poignant folklore found in the songs of Mississippi John Hurt. Yet this is part of the blues’ enduring appeal: Untangling the webs and uncovering truths, in a search for a genuine understanding of the history and origins of the blues, is almost a requirement for being a fan. Alongside hip-hop, reggae, and grime, this is music indelibly linked to the conditions from which it arose, an art form that also serves as social commentary, communal history, and cathartic release.

Blues songs speak of the joy and suffering of being alive. They also remind us of one of the darkest periods in human history, of the terrible depths to which we are capable of sinking should we abandon the notion that all people are equal in value. This is a message that, in all likelihood, will never cease to be relevant. A hundred years on from its birth, the blues continue to speak to the heart. The articles below collectively do a fine job of capturing the essence, meaning, history, and importance of this most singular sound.

Searching for Robert Johnson (Frank Digiacomo, Vanity Fair, October 2008)

Perhaps more than any other bluesman, Robert Leroy Johnson epitomizes the lasting allure and deep mythology of the genre. The legendary artist recorded just 29 tracks before dying at age 27, performing mostly in bars and on street corners across Mississippi in the 1930s. His physical presence feels as spectral as his music. Just two extant photos of the man exist, and very little firsthand information. Much of Johnson’s enduring fame centers on the perennial blues myth that the musician owed his guitar skills to the devil, to whom he traded his soul at a crossroads outside of Clarksdale. In fact, this particular tale predates Johnson, and has been attributed to many other bluesmen over the years, yet it sticks to Johnson like no other.

A thorough deconstruction of the man and his music can be found in Elijah Wald’s excellent book, Escaping the Delta, published by Harper Collins in 2004.

Digiacomo’s feature explores the continuing fascination and mystery surrounding this singular artist, though it does so obliquely: The incredible and convoluted story begins one day in 2005, when Steven “Zeke” Schein, a guitar expert and Delta blues obsessive, stumbles upon what he believes to be a never-before-seen photograph of Johnson. The ensuing tale illustrates in compelling prose the intriguing intangibility of the musician’s life and work.

With the eBay photo still on his computer monitor, Schein dug up his copy of the Johnson boxed set and took another look. Not only was he more confident than ever that he had found a photo of Robert Johnson, he had a hunch who the other man in the photo was, too: Johnny Shines, a respected Delta blues artist in his own right, and one of the handful of musicians who, in the early 1930s and again in the months before Johnson’s death, had traveled with him from town to town to look for gigs or stand on busy street corners and engage in a competitive practice known as “cuttin’ heads,” whereby one blues musician tries to draw away the crowd (and their money) gathered around another musician by standing on a nearby corner and outplaying him.

Jackie Kay on Bessie Smith: ‘My Libidinous, Raunchy, Fearless Blueswoman’ (Jackie Kay, The Guardian, February 2021)

Jacqueline “Jackie” Kay is a remarkable figure. A writer who holds both an MBE and CBE for services to literature, her many other achievements include winning the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and becoming poet laureate of Scotland. All this despite the considerable challenges of her personal background.

In this moving piece, Kay talks fondly and with passion about the inspiration she found, as a gay Black girl growing up in 1970s Glasgow, in the life and music of blues singer Bessie Smith. Kay transports us back to her formative years, welcoming the reader inside the mind of her younger self to encounter the feelings, strengths, and flights of fantasy that sprang from her internal relationship with the legendary singer. Later, in 1997, Kay would publish her own critically acclaimed biography of the artist: Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography of a Blues Legend.

On the front cover she was smiling. Every feature of her face lit up by a huge grin bursting with personality. Her eyes full of hilarity. Her wide mouth full of laughing teeth. On the back she was sad. Her mouth shut. Eyes closed. Eyebrows furrowed. The album cover was like a strange two-sided coin. The two faces of Bessie Smith. I knew from that first album that I had made a friend for life. I would never forget her.

J. R.’s Jook and the Authenticity Mirage (Greg Brownderville, Southwest Review, 2017)

Musician and writer Greg Brownderville takes a literal step back into the mythical blues landscape in this evocative piece about friendship, music, and an almost-forgotten way of life, when a chance encounter leads him to a blues-jam party hosted by a character who lingers large in the author’s memory.

For many blues aficionados, nothing matters more than “authenticity,” whatever that nebulous term is taken to mean. This article discusses that, for sure, but the love and passion at the heart of this essay is to be discerned in thoughts about friendship, community, and the true warts-and-all history of a music that will forever be entangled with the socioeconomic conditions from which it arose.

Pudding slung her arm around me and shouted, “J. R.! If this boy can blues, remember: I’m the one invited him. If he can’t blues, it’s all your fault for handing him this guitar.” J. R. howled a boisterous laugh. But then he said with a serious, almost-preacherly voice, “Listen. We tickled to have this young man here tonight. I believe we done found us a new friend in blues.”

Keeping the Blues Alive (Touré, Smithsonian, September 2016)

The current state of the blues landscape continues to provoke arguments, introspection, and fears. Some would even contest that “real” blues is a thing of the past, its present-day protagonists serving up a distilled version of an art form forever frozen in time. Such conditions make this piece by renowned music critic Touré a fascinating read, as he documents a visit to the 32nd International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee.

For an in-depth look at one of the most feted of current bluesmen, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, see Carlo Rotella’s Washington Post profile of the man and his craft.

While Memphis in recent years has become home to a celebrated rap movement, Touré discovers a city in which the blues are very much alive and kicking. Fans will find much to celebrate and find themselves able to take a hatful of hope from this beautifully written piece, which covers blues from all angles, from the deeply personal to the highly pragmatic. To hear modern advocates speak with such passion, knowledge, and reverence is as inspirational as it is moving.

“The blues is an antipsychotic to keep my people from losing their minds,” she begins. “It started with the moans and groans of agony, the slave roots of it all.” Then she sings, “There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names! There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names!” She shoots us a coldblooded look.

What the Mississippi Delta Teaches Me About Home—and Hope (Wright Thompson, National Geographic, June 2020)

Wright Thompson grew up in Clarksdale, a town in Mississippi that strongly asserts its claim as “the birthplace of the blues.” It certainly has a wealth of history to back this up: Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, and a host of other musicians were born there, and the town remains an enticing draw for modern blues fans.

I suspect that this article, in which Wright Thompson and his young family take a short trip through the Mississippi Delta, will resonate with many. COVID has changed some more than others, but for all of us, the world will never be quite the same. Here, Thompson explores how blues music — full of life, longing, hope, and pain — resonates across the decades. The blues frequently evoke suffering and heartbreak, but it should be remembered that it is, at its core, a purging, and in many ways a purifying force.

I’ve been thinking recently about how these specific blues could be the soundtrack for a country trying to emerge from quarantine in one piece. A friend I trust told me that sentiment sounds like a kumbaya, and I know what he means. There is real pain and irreducible violence in the music. It records a very particular history.

When Young Elvis Met the Legendary B.B. King (Daniel de Visé, Lit Hub, November 2021)

Two “kings” meet here in this illuminating piece — an excerpt of de Visé’s book King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King — which does a fine job of capturing the magic and majesty of two stars from different sides of the blues line. Presley’s music and heritage is every bit as caught up in the blues as B.B.’s. To modern eyes and ears, the legacy of Elvis can seem problematic. For some it is a clear-cut case: Elvis stole Black music. The reality is far more nuanced. Presley was very much aware of his overwhelming debt to the blues, an art form he loved and admired above all others, and this piece offers a telling glimpse into the complicated and bigoted world of the music industry in ’50s/’60s America.

B.B. himself is one of the few “classic” bluesmen to have extended his professional work into the modern age. He began his career at the tail end of the ’40s, and played his final live show in 2014. A living link to the past and revered by countless musicians from the ’60s onwards, King remains one of the greatest exponents of electric blues. There is another vital link here: Producer Sam Phillips, the man who “discovered” Elvis, also produced many of King’s early recordings.

Peter Guralnick’s Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll, a wonderful history of Phillips, explores this theme in detail.

You’ll find a striking line in this article in the form of a quote from Phillips: “If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.” Whether Phillips truly said this is up for debate. Many have argued that if Phillips did say such a thing, it would have been in the spirit of frustration, and bemoaning such racism. This is a man who championed Black musicians long before — and long after — the coming of Elvis. Regardless, the sentiment lays bare the appalling racism that was endemic to the business at that time.

“But Elvis was different. He was friendly. I remember Elvis distinctly,” B.B. recalled, “because he was handsome and quiet and polite to a fault”—not unlike B.B. himself. “Spoke with this thick molasses Southern accent and always called me ‘sir.’ I liked that. In the early days, I heard him strictly as a country singer,” which is how most people regarded Elvis in the early years. Elvis made his first television appearance on a program titled Louisiana Hayride. “I liked his voice, though I had no idea he was getting ready to conquer the world.”

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