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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In this compendium of everyone who was anyone who ever spent a moment alone, readers bump fleetingly into Kurt Cobain, French Resistance fighters, the Lone Ranger ("Tonto notwithstanding"), Michelangelo, Alexander Pope, John Lennon, cowboys, Saint Anthony and other solo acts. Rufus, the books editor of East Bay Express, views Degas's plain-faced dancers as "pretty ballerinas" whom the artist leaves every time he exits his studio, and Warhol's biography as "tellingly titled Loner at the Ball." She chases her motif, not so much a manifesto as a cri de coeur, through an assortment of perspectives: religion, advertising, clothes, crime, art, eccentricity, environment, literature, religion and popular culture. She also identifies "pseudoloners" like Theodore Kaczynski and Jesus Christ (who "was too good at guiding crowds to have been one of us"). There's an us/them tone to this book that makes one wonder who the audience might be. The "us" people "do not need writers to tell us how lovely apartness is"; the "them" people will surely weary of being identified as "Nonloners. The world at large. The mob." Taken in column-sized doses, Rufus may be entertaining and informative, but her book feels as if too much random information has been cut-and-pasted together.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
The Buddha. Rene Descartes. Emily Dickinson. Greta Garbo. Bobby Fischer. J. D. Salinger: Loners, all—along with as many as 25 percent of the world's population. Loners keep to themselves, and like it that way. Yet in the press, in films, in folklore, and nearly everywhere one looks, loners are tagged as losers and psychopaths, perverts and pity cases, ogres and mad bombers, elitists and wicked witches. Too often, loners buy into those messages and strive to change, making themselves miserable in the process by hiding their true nature—and hiding from it. Loners as a group deserve to be reassessed—to claim their rightful place, rather than be perceived as damaged goods that need to be "fixed." In Party of One Anneli Rufus -- a prize-winning, critically acclaimed writer with talent to burn -- has crafted a morally urgent, historically compelling tour de force—a long-overdue argument in defense of the loner, then and now. Marshalling a polymath's easy erudition to make her case, assembling evidence from every conceivable arena of culture as well as interviews with experts and loners worldwide and her own acutely calibrated analysis, Rufus rebuts the prevailing notion that aloneness is indistinguishable from loneliness, the fallacy that all of those who are alone don't want to be, and wouldn't be, if only they knew how.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read it Alone and Rejoice!,
By
This review is from: Party Of One: The Loners' Manifesto (Paperback)
Finally an answer to a loner's prayers! We are not as strange as the world wants to make us out to be afterall.Anneli Rufus has done a magnificent job telling about life from a loner's perspective and making it all sound capable and NORMAL. She writes chapters on the loner in community, popular culture, films, advertising, friendships, love & sex, technology, art, literature, religion, sanity, crime, eccentricity, clothes, environment, solo adventures and at last childhood. The words are a true manifesto for a loner's hungry soul, finally another person who understands. In a world where loners are thought to be strange, crazy serial killers who cannot conform to society, Rufus encourages the idea that most loners in truth are the great creators and contemplators of the world. Issac Newton, Michaelangelo, writers, artists and philosophers become necessary human beings within all of their secretiveness. Instead of being arrogant attention getting hounds most loners create from the heart and give without a need for recognition, the truly unselfish can be found only in those selfish enough to enjoy being alone. I would have loved to have given this book to a teacher who I had as a child. I remember sitting in a room with my parents while they were told by the "teacher" that she felt I was somehow autistic and withdrawn and might need "special" education. Despite my A's, my ability to pay attention and my athletic ability I was labeled and marked as a failure in her eyes. I wonder how many children today are pegged as something they are not and guided in a wrong direction. It took me 40 years to figure out how unique and completely normal I really am but I would hope after reading this book many others could celebrate the adventure alot sooner. A must read for those of you with quiet, withdrawn children who would rather day dream than stand around with all the other cattle.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Heavy-handed and self-righteous,
By stackenblochen (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Party Of One: The Loners' Manifesto (Paperback)
I agree with the few other reviewers that didn't like this book. Like everyone else, I was attracted to the book because it sounded like an interesting treatment of my dominant personality trait, introversion. However, the book seems more like a one-sided journal of grievances, where loners are always poor sensitive souls who are abused by an the majority 'mob' of extoverts. This is a way too simplistic view, especially for someone who claims that loners are typically more thoughtful and insightful than most. For one, the world isn't divided into introverts and 'the mob'--personalities come in all shades between shy and gregarious. And describing non-introverts as a 'mob' is encouraging an unfair, close-minded view that anyone who doesn't understand you, or who prefers socializing, must be a dull, insensitive part of some herd. Only introverts can be individuals? Give me a break. It's not easy being shy when outgoing is the norm, but blaming other people for your problems isn't going to help. I would have prefered a fairer treatment of all types of people, rather than pages and pages of "us vs them, and we are always right".
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Making it all make sense!,
By
This review is from: Party Of One: The Loners' Manifesto (Paperback)
When I first looked at this book I thought it was going to be rather a dry read. I was completely wrong. While light hearted, it is a serious and entertaining look into what is a loner, and why they are important to society.Anneli Rufus pulls together so much. Why are loners the persecuted minority, yet worshiped in literature and the arts. Perhaps the most telling chapter is how the media constantly pushes the image of the "loner" as the criminal type involved in so many violent crimes. The reality is that such people are not loners by choice, but outcasts who do not want to be alone. If you are an introvert, and don't understand why people won't leave you alone, or why people think you are a weirdo because you prefer your own company, or even the spouse of a loner, this is a book not to be missed.
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