Reflections on the Work of Colin Wilson

Home , Colin Wilson, Robert Musil

Proceedings of the Second International Colin Wilson Conference University of Nottingham July 6-8, 2018

Edited by Colin Stanley

Reflections on the Work of Colin Wilson

Edited by Colin Stanley

This book first published 2019

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-2774-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-2774-4 CONTENTS

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Acknowledgement ...... vii

Preface ...... ix Colin Stanley

Introduction ...... 1 John Morgan

Voyager and Dreamer:’s Autobiographical Colin Wilson...... Writing 7 .. Nicolas Tredell

The Evolutionaryhors of Metap Colin Wilson...... 27 David J. Moore

The Outsider and the Work: Coliny ..... Wilson, 41 Gurdjieff and Ouspensk Gary Lachman

Consistent Patternsations in of Two Reviews Generts and Assessmen ofThe Outsider ...... 53 George C. Poulos

Writinge toPurpose Som ...... 73 Stanley Krippner

The Hunt for ColinLulu ...... Wilson’s 9 7 Vaughan Rapatahana

Body, Mind, Heart: Three Aspects of Mysticism in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities ...... 89 Brendan McNamee

vi Contents

Colin Wilsonn Music o ...... 101 Jonathan Lewsey

Appendix: The WritingAdrift inof Soho Colin ...... Wilson’s 117 Colin Stanley

Notes on Contributors...... 125

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thanks, once again, to Rowan Wilsonvarious for the photographs of the speakers.

PREFACE

SECONDINTERNATIONAL COLINWILSON CONFERENCE UNIVERSITYNOTTINGHAM OF JULY6-8, 2018

COLINSTANLEY

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 With the success of the First enceInternational in July Colin Wilson Confer 2016, it was agreed that, providingit should funding could be obtained, become a bi-annual event. Agains thought the University of Nottingham wa to be the best venue,home of being Wilson’s thettingham archive and No itself a central accessible location to easily UK. all Once parts again, of the however, as with the First Conference,ame not delegates and speakers c only from the Home Countries but from all parts of the world.

Unlike the previous Conference,this which one lasted for just one day, spread itself out overth July, three. eight On academic Friday 6 papers on x Preface aspects of Wilson’s work weref presented the King’s in the formal setting o Meadow Campus of the University of Nottingham. During the lunch interval delegates were invitedanuscripts to view an exhibition, by the M and Special Collections staff,ks, of published and unpublished boo manuscripts, dissertations and theses about Wilson’s work.

On the morning ofth, Saturday delegates the were 7 entertained at the Mercure Hotel in central Nottingham990 by a video screening of a 1 performance of Donald SwannThe and Man withColin Wilson’s operetta a Thousand Faces. This was followed by theColin premiere of the film Wilson: Philosopher of Optimism, a lengthy interview with Wilson conducted in 2006.

In the evening a meal was provided guests for the speakers and special (which included the Wilson family: at the Joy, Sally, Damon and Rowan) hotel.

On the morningth, of for Sunday the delegates 8 that remained, there was a private preview screening of novel theAdrift feature film of Colin Wilson’s in Soho at the Nottingham Broadway cinema. Directed by Pablo Behrens, this received its premiere inmber Londonth 14 later in the year, on Nove 2018, and was nominated for awardsound theat various film festivals ar globe.

Meanwhile, the Wilson revival of continues Brad with the second edition Spurgeon’sColin Wilson: Philosopher of Optimism and the publication of what has survived of the manuscriptd novel of Colin Wilson’s unfinishe Lulu in 2017. In 2018 a new editionEagles of Wilson’s long out-of-print and Earwigs: essays on books and writers was issued by Eyewear Publishing. 2019 will see the ssential publication of Wilson’s updated e reader:The Ultimate Colin Wilson by Watkins Publishing and David J. Moore’sEvolutionary Metaphors: UFOs, new existentialism and the future paradigm byth 6Books. Also, from Paupers’ Press, two more ‘Colin Wilson Studies’My Interest and in Murder: an autobiographical introduction to Wilson’sOrder of Assassins , discarded before publication in 1972 and re- discoveredter 45 among years his la papers.

Reflections on the Work of Colinxi Wilson

Holdings of the Colin Wilson Archivengham can at the University of Notti be accessed at: http://mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk/CalmView/TreeBrowse.aspx?src= CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=CWA

Details of the Colin Wilson Collectiontingham can at the University of Not be accessed at: http://mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src= CalmView.Catalog&id= CWC&pos=7

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INTRODUCTION: MEETINGS OMETO P URPOSE

JOHNM ORGAN

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While it is unfortunately thecant case attention that Colin Wilson received s from the cultural establishmente is a during small, his lifetime, today ther yet dedicated, cadre of friendsto layand thesupporters who are seeking foundations for a field of Wilsonfurthering studies, of or perhaps even the his work by future scholars. Towardrences this end, a series of confe dedicated to his work has beenhe inaugurated, second, of which this was t the first having been held in 2016.

Friday July 6 was the day of theformal Conference proper. Before the proceedings began,attendees however, were the invited archive to view of Colin Wilson’s manuscripts,housed papers at and printed work that is the University ofarchive Nottingham. is a hattreasure The will surely trove t be fruitfully minedolars by for Wilsonears many to schy come.

Then came the lectures. Firsth up literary was Nicolas Tredell, an Englis scholar who has published two to studies date, the of Colin Wilson’s fiction more recentNovels one to Some being Purpose; the fiction of Colin Wilson,1 a massive tome which is an exhaustiveilson’s critical exploration of W many novels. Mr. Tredell’s paper,ilson’s ‘Voyager and Dreamer: Colin W autobiographical writing’ focusedaphies notthat only on the two autobiogr Wilson published,Voyage to a Beginning andDreaming to Some Purpose, but also the various places,s, scattered where he across his other writing talked about himself.ny other More thinker thanf, with aI can the think o possible exception of Nietzsche,und Wilson’sup work was very much bo with the story of his life, andis he own made frequent reference to h experiences to illustrate pointsell pointed he made in his books. Mr. Tred out that Wilson wasfor quitea British atypical1950s writer and of early the ’60s in that he wrote quite franklyness was about still himself, when prudish the norm, most especiallys of his own in sexual terms. experience 2 Introduction: Meeting to Some Purpose

Next was David Moore, a young, upcoming is just independent scholar who about to publishEvolutionary his first Metaphors: book,UFOs, New Existentialism, and the Future Paradigm.2 Mr. Moore’s lecture, ‘The Evolutionary Metaphors of Colinarize Wilson,’ the was an attempt to summ thesis of his book, and expandedrote upon about ideas that Colin Wilson w in his 1998Alien Dawn: book, An Investigation into the Contact Experience. Moore contended that attemptingn itself to understand the UFO phenomeno serves as a metaphor for grapplinging reality, with a new way of understand given that so many attempts to s investigate and it have revealed gap contradictions in our existingonsciousness, understanding of the universe, c and epistemology that our currentve. His science seems unable to resol paper sought to expand upon Wilson’sd original existing ideas in a new an way helping to point towards the in a future manner of Colin Wilson studies that few others have attempted remain thus far. For Wilson’s legacy to vibrant, scholars to must venture be unafraid intoy, or new even territor question some of Wilson’s own conclusions.

The third speaker of the day wasmerican Gary Lachman, the well-known A writer on esotericism and the powerd a of imagination who publishe comprehensive and definitive isintroduction work, to Colin Wilson and h Beyond the Robot: the life and work of Colin Wilson, in 2016,3 a book which serves as the ideal startingto place Wilson’s for anyone seeking to get in work for the first time. Mr. Lachman the Work: spoke on ‘The Outsider and Colin Wilson, Gurdjieff, and Ouspensky,’ which discussing the ways in Wilson drew on the two ‘Fourth his Way’ writing thinkers over the course of career. Lachman mentioned that interests, Wilson, as he was in many of his was ahead of his time in his interesting he began in the Fourth Way, someth to investigate which in the didn’t 1950s, reach consciousness but the popular until the surge in interests, in after all things which spiritual in the 1970 Gurdjieff and Ouspensky becameically household names among the esoter inclined.

Mr. Lachman was followed by Georgear from Poulos, an independent schol Australia who hasitten previously and spoken wrwork. about His Wilson’s lecture was on ‘TheThe Outsider Importance.’ Mr. Poulos’ of contention is thatThe Outsider is by far Colinngle Wilson’s greatest si achievement, and that all of his other work palesd that inThe comparison to it. He claime Outsider’s direct appeal to the alienationorld felt by many in the modern w makes it a work with greater powerorpus than to any other in Wilson’s c draw-in readers and cause thems, to evidence see the world through his eye for which he sees in the fact the that, only of one all Wilson’s work, it is which has never gone out-of-printin 1956. since Mr. it was first published John Morgan 3

Poulos made an interesting andt passionate that I case, but I must admi considerThe New Existentialism to be his crowning achievement in the area of philosophy; and most probably to draw-Wilson’s novels have done more in readers new to him than have any of the philosophical works.

The next speaker was the American, who, psychologist at Stanley Krippner 85 years of age, stepped in whenforced one of to the other speakers was cancel at the lastor Krippner minute. Profess haszed long in the speciali paranormal and altered states oflly consciousness, and was persona acquainted with Colin Wilson.r His Some talk was entitled ‘Writing fo Purpose,’ and he discussed theon’s psychological work, dimensions of Wils particularly concerningtionship with his Maslow, srela Wilson’s as well a acquaintance withsychiatric a plethora researchersheyday of p who in his were investigating mind aspectswhich are ofed often the taboo consider by today’s mainstream. Professor sted Krippner also compared and contra Wilson's and Maslow's respectivels of approaches to the various leve consciousness.

The New Zealand author Vaughan ngRapatahana ‘The was up next, discussi Hunt for ColinLulu.’ LuluWilson’s was a novel on which Wilson worked, off and on, throughout his life,spired but by never the completed. It was in unconventional female character,playwright first developed by the German Frank Wedekind to critique bourgeoisy. Mr. attitudes towards sexualit Rapatahana presented several reasonsto why Wilson was never able complete the book. His assertion to create that Wilson found it difficult realistic female charactersusively and invariably from depicted things excl a masculine point-of-view wasriod challenged by during the question pe Gary Lachman. Last year Mr.Colin Wilson’s Rapatahana ‘Lulu’: published An Unfinished Novel,4 which featured the whole of the surviving text of the unpublished manuscript, as welling as its his own introduction discuss history.

The penultimate lecture was given Brendan by Irish novelist and scholar McNamee, who spoke on ‘Body, Mind,icism Heart: Three Aspects of Myst in RobertThe Musil’s Man Without Qualities ,’ which was drawn from a book published5 This last was year. the only paper that was not directly related to Colin Wilson, althoughh opinion Wilson himself had a very hig of Musil’s novel describing it f as the “…one of the most important o twentieth century”. Robert Musile early was an Austrian novelist of th twentiethThe century Man Without Qualities and, which remained incomplete at the time of hismagnum death, opus. Mr was McNamee his discussed the mystical elements of the novel the and often the way in which he depicted 4 Introduction: Meeting to Some Purpose concealed unity between our consciousnessy of the within and the realit world outside.

The final speaker of the day wasra Jonathan singer, Lewsey, a British ope actor, director,ar who and spoke opera on schol ‘Colinnd Music.’ Wilson a Wilson was an avid fan of opera,ch heclassical wrote music, and jazz, whi about on occasion.cussed Mr. Lewsey Wilson’s disest personal in inter music and the influence it hadtantly, on his work he but, even more impor described how thehearing experience a powerful ofic can piece of mus induce ‘peak experiences’ if Mr. one Lewsey is in the right frame of mind. ended his brilliant lecture Nilsson by playing singing us a recording of Birgit the famous ‘Liebestod’Tristan und Isoldefrom, a Wagner’s piece of music that Wilson himself stated had when induced he a peak experience in him heard it on the radiong as a while hospital workie early orderly 1950s. in th

The end of Friday’s formal programy was followed by a wonderfull informal evening at Colin Stanley’ss were home in which all the guest treated to a celebration Coliniated: Wilson himself would have apprec quaffing wine, which had beensomehow, one of Wilson’s great loves. But in spite of this we managed tong rise to attendearly enough the next morni Saturday’s event:The Mana presentation with a Thousand Faces, the of sole opera libretto that Wilsongthy ever video composed, as well as a len interview that was made with him in 2006.

The Man with a Thousand Faces was presented by Leon Berger, a British opera singer and director, whowork. explained It was the background of the the result of a collaboration betweena Welsh Wilson and Donald Swann, composer of comic songs who wase well-known 1950s in Britain during th and ’60s as half of the comic duo,ured Flanders the and Swann, which to country and madevision occasional and radio telen the appearances. early I 1960s, Swann met Wilson and feltabout that would the ideas he was writing make a good subject for an opera,bretto and which Wilson wrote a one-act li Swann then set to music. The opera’sller at plot a is about a fortune-te fairground, Jeremyresents Mansell, himself whoomers to p female as a cust mystic who can cure their personalve meeting woes, which invariably invol him alone for romantic trysts, Paulette. much to the The chagrin of his wife, opera mainly deals with a successionseduce his of attempts by Mansell to clients, offering monologues Wilson’s which contain recognizable bits of philosophy, until the womene finally him offstage. tire of his antics and chas Completed in 1964, it was performed960s, andon a few occasions in the 1 again in 1990, when a video ofamera. it was made Mr. using a stationary c Berger presented excerpts fromngs both and the audio and video recordi John Morgan 5 filled in the gaps with his own unremarkable, exposition. The opera is rather apart from the fact that Wilsonger and related Swann wrote it, and Mr. Ber that Wilson was rather embarrassedrs, but byit hiswas libretto in later yea enjoyable and amusing to see,ootnote as well toas being an interesting f Wilson’s already large and varied corpus.

This was followed by a brief introductionever-before- to and showing of a n screened interview, conducted that had in 2006, beenadian by the Can writer, journalist, and musicianed a very Brad Spurgeon, who has publish good book based on a differentnducted set of interviews with that he had co Wilson,Colin Wilson: Philosopher of Optimism.6 I’ve seen and read many of Wilson’s interviews and lecturess definitely over the years, and this wa one of the most interesting ones.

The last event, held on Sunday,ompleted was a screening of a recently-c film of the first partAdrift of in Wilson’s Soho, which 1961 was novel eventually released in Novembere 2018.of The book was based on som Wilson’s own experiences livinggling as a bohemian among other strug writers and artists in 1950s Londonakthrough prior to his publishing bre withThe Outsider . Wilson, wise already in his youth, soon recognized that such a lifestyle was a dead-ende film,that ultimately led nowhere. Th sympatheticallyo Behrens, directed with by Pablera-work atmospheric cam and music, was very well receiveded by by Colin delegates. It was introduc Stanley and the Director, in attendance, for made himself available questions afterwards.

While the 2016 conference was whomengaging, I all the participants to spoke said this one was even better, varied with more wide-ranging and events that succeeded in capturingon’s vast all the many aspects of Wils universe of thought. I believe relevance, that his work is only growing in and we must make sure that hisat legacy he always gets the re-evaluation th hoped it would, and continue gto wheel try to of take hold of the steerin mankind’s mental development heading into the future. Notes

1Nottingham: Paupers’ Press, 2015. 2 Winchester:th Books, 6 2019. 3 New York: TarcherPerigee, 2016. 4 Nottingham: Paupers’ Press, 2017. 5 Mysticism in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. Nottingham: Paupers’ Press, 2017 6 Manchester: Michaelnd edition Butterworth, 2017. 2 6 Introduction: Meeting to Some Purpose

A longer version of this IntroductionCounter- was published on the Currents website.

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 VOYAGER ANDDREAMER : COLINWILSON ’SA UTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING

NICOLASTREDELL

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 The title of this paper of course book-length alludes to Colin Wilson’s two autobiographies,Voyage to a Beginning (1969)1 andDreaming to Some Purpose (2004).2 To these we could add two other books that would not be categorized primarilyraphies asbut autobiog havegraphical major autobio elements. One is SidneyThe World of R. Colin Campion’s Wilson (1962), much of which sounds, even in then, passagesas if it ostensibly by Campio 8 Voyager and Dreamer:on’s Autobiographical Colin Wils Writing were written, or revised, at least by heavily Wilsond which himself an includes what are presented aslson long and verbatim quotations from Wi extracts from his still otherwise3 The second unpublished book journals. with major autobiographicalThe Books elements in My Life is Wilson’s own (1998), which, as its title suggests,tural criticism combines literary and cul of both canonical and popular Farnol, writers for – Henry James and Jeffery example4 – with fascinating auto-biographicalhe material: for instance, t impact upon Wilson as a boyThe of Truth a About serial story entitled Wilson in a comicThe calledWizard.5 The Wilson of the story was an athletic hero who has learnting the his secret life of – considerably prolong an idea that, for Colin Wilson, emphasis would later on link up with Shaw’s the importance of greatlyBack to Methuselah increased (1922). longevity in

The autobiographical aspect ofonfined Wilson’s to work is not, however, c these four books: that is why thislson’s paper is subtitled “Colin Wi autobiographical writing” ratheraphies”. than “Colin Wilson’s autobiogr Many – indeed, most – of his nonfiction books contain important autobiographical often elements. take the Thesee form French of what th literary theorist Gérard Genettethresholds” called “seuils”, which means “ in French but whichtranslated usually as gets that “paratexts”, is the and term that will6 paratexts be used here: are not part of a main text but may significantly influence the thinkway in about which readers respond to and a main text: they would include, afterwords, for example, introductions and of which Wilson has produced many,or other both for his own books and f people’s.7

The many Wilson paratexts forographical his own books that contain autobi material include the “AutobiographicalReligion and the Introduction” to Rebel (1957), an absorbingocative and account ev of his childhood, adolescence and8 the early postscript manhood;Bernard Shaw: to A Reassessment (1969) entitled, borrowing a phrase from Shaw himself, “My Own Part in the Matter”, which recountsnd the his discovery of Shaw a subsequent development of9 and his the attitudes first towards him; appendixBeyond tothe Outsider (1965) in which he evokes and analyses his experiences of taking mescalineriences and of compares it with the exp others such as Aldous Huxley10 Each and of Jean-Paul these Sartre. examples, three out of many,d is read compelling any of in itself – you coul them as stand-alone11 – but they accounts also feed into and enrich the main texts to which they are attached,y feed and into those and main texts similarl enrich the paratexts that surround them. Nicolas Tredell 9

There are also thed later, paratexts whichf adde werethe original not part o edition but offer fascinatinge genesis,memories of and reflections on th writing and receptionThe of Outsider a book: Twenty for Years example, “ On”, the introduction The to Outsider the,12 1978or the edition of “Introduction” to the 2002 SavoyThe Killer Books edition of the novel (1970).13

In Wilson’s work, however, autobiographicalonly in elements occur not those paratextual elements, suchs, that as introductions and afterword precede or follow the main texts;in texts they also occur within the ma themselves. For example, thereAccess is to the account, in Chapter 2 of Inner Worlds (1983), of his second bout of panic attacks at a time when he was working14 hevery described hard; his first bout in the introduction to Mysteries (1978).15 In recent years, we have had a spate of accounts of panic attacks, depression and othernd kindsthey now of psychological distress a almost constitute a subgenre16 but in the in their late 1970s own right; and early 1980s, Wilson was17 Moreover, a pioneer inmany this such field. accounts, even whenf them the have writers recovered,to o the fall in category of “misery memoirs”; review but as Hilaryof Corke observed in a Wilson’sThe novelMind Parasites (1967), Wilson is a writer who “manages to make even a detailedclinical account of a severe attack of depression sound like something the Choralout of the last five minutes of Symphony”.18 So Wilson’s accounts of panic and depression, whether in main text or paratext, are energizednt even when evoking unpleasa experiences, and ultimatelyty optimistic, of getting stressing the possibili better and even stronger and himself the active or role that the sufferer herself can play in this.

Another example of an autobiographicalxt occurs element within a main te in ChapterFrankenstein’s 6 of Castle (1980): this is the vivid and arresting account of how Wilson’s Sally, then daughter, threegot lost years in old, Cheltenham and understandablyanic provoked and in her parents instant p the fear she might of course come to we harm; knowad a this happy story h ending because Sally is here with story us totoday. Wilson deploys this illustrate one of his favourite taking points: the good how easily we fall into things in our lives for grantedem again and only – and learn to appreciate th life in general – when the threat recalls of losing that as them arises. Wilson they drove on, within the Sally car, safely “I noticedutiful how bea everything looked. A bus thatmed held a delightful us up at a traffic light see object; even exhaust smoke19 struck[…] I felt me as no a pleasant smell impatience – only enormous gratitudeso that everything should be interesting”.20 For Wilson, the most important lesson from the experience 10 Voyager and Dreamer:on’s Autobiographical Colin Wils Writing was that “I had refused to giveenergy’ way to panic to and had ‘summoned meet the emergency”. 21

In Wilson’s case, these autobiographicalide his main elements around or ins texts are fascinating glimpses are into never a remarkable life; but they merely anecdotal in the dismissive“It’s sense,just as when someone says an anecdote”. In theVoyage first to a Beginning paragraph, Wilson of observes that “the events of tomy makelife medo not interest me enough attempt such a thing,re they except can bete usedwhe an idea”.22to illustra That last clause is crucials because of hisdo life it indicates that the event interest him when they can be linkedprimarily with ideas. Wilson is not concerned with the autobiographical interesting anecdote for its own sake – though his anecdotes he is always concerned are;al with its gener psychological and philosophicalt “the implications; truth he is seeking, no about Wilson” asson a particular but the wider human per truth about psychology and human existence,ightly and autobiographical writing, r approached, offers one means ofn grasping this more strongly tha abstractions can. In this respect,ist, linking Wilson is a true existential philosophical enquiry with lived experience.

In regard to the linking of philosophyhere is a with lived experience, t famous anecdote of the foundingsm moment in of Sartrean existentiali Sartre’s discovery of the potentially 1930s. of phenomenology in the ear This anecdote supplied the title,taphor starting-point of, and and central me achieved greater currencyAt the through, Existentialist Sarah Bakewell’s Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails (2016)23 – a book, incidentally, which is unusually sympathetica towardsmore Wilson, perhaps marking general change of attitude towards century.24 As his work in the twenty-first Simone de Beauvoir – another writervery for whom autobiography was important – tells the story, shend Aron and Jean-Paul – Sartre and Raymo formidable French intellectuals, would though not then famous as they become after Worlde spending War Two – an wer eveningat the together Bec de Gaz café in the Rue Montparnasse studying in Paris. Aron had been Husserl and phenomenology French Institute at eythe ordered in Berlin. Th apricot cocktails, the specialitypointing of to the his house, and Aron said, glass:Tu vois, “mon petit camarade, si tu es phénoménologue, tu peux parler de ce cocktail, et c’est la philosophie!” [“You see, my dear fellow, if you are a phenomenologist, you make can talk about this cocktail and philosophy25 Accounts out of it”!]. differ as to whether the drink in question was an apricot cocktail26 but of or course a glass the of beer; particular drink does not matter and it need notat be all; a drink. for It can be anything example, all the experienceerence that each – which of us enjoys at this conf Nicolas Tredell 11 does of course include a few drinks for – can be the starting point philosophical enquiry;ence at all any can experiark be. in Aron’s the rem Bec de Gaz apparently came as a in revelation a to Sartre, schooled philosophical tradition that was more much more rationalist and much abstract;27 it seemed to offeronnecting a way ofphilosophical c on abstracti with immediate experience; and this is what Wilson does in his autobiographical writing: thearound autobiographical his elements in and nonfiction texts and in the paratexts and re- to his novels are records evocations of the lived experiencesalysis offrom a which philosophical an phenomenological and existential that kind develops, and they enrich analysis, preventingming too it fromabstract, becot in grounding i experiential reality, bringingWilson’s it down case, to earth – but only, in in order ultimately to ascend higher.

A further comparisonseems with appropriate Sartret. In at his this poin earlier work, Sartre stressedentialist the active self-making that exist freedom demanded; what a personfinally was, what a person became, was determined notetic by his make-up or her genorent social but by environm a series of choices. Sartre wrote as they five have existential biographies, been called,stential and one autobiography;exi28 we will focus here on one of those existentialistSaint Genet [Saint biographies, Genet] (1952), a monumental studytill of a alive, man then Jeanef s and Genet, ex- the thi convict turnedVoyage novelist. to a Beginning, Wilson In discusses the relationship between juvenile and delinquency, crime and creativity remarks “It would be interestingiminal to activities have a record of all the cr of all the artists of the and past writers hundred29 One has years”. to say that such a record would probably bee criminal a pretty long one – and that th activities of artists and writersr longer over would the past hundred years o be a good book topic, perhaps forscussion, someone here today. In his di Wilson specificallyet, saying: mentions “The a Gen Gen[e]t development of may be commoner than we think –er’.” from30 At thief to rebel and ‘outsid the end of Sartre’s study, he ,stresses however that Genet’s development much he might look like a victima series of society, of was the result of choices; he mayphan have stigmatized been an orincarcerated as a thief and in a reformatory, but – SartreJ’ai quotesdécidé Genet directly here – “ d’être ce que le crime a fait de moi” [“I decided to be what crime made of me”].31 Genet did not stoper: there,and we can howev addm to a fourth ter Wilson’s outline of Genet’sider” life: to from writer. thief to rebel and “outs Genet becomes a famous, canonical French writer, a master of classical prose even if applied to what dwere subjects. conventionally seen as sordi In his conclusion to the Genetried study, to show Sartre says that he has t thatle génie “ n’est pas un don mais l’issue qu’on invente dans les cas 12 Voyager and Dreamer:on’s Autobiographical Colin Wils Writing désespérés” [“genius is not a gift but the way out that one invents in desperate32 cases”].

Bearing that quote in mind, we Voyage can to turn to Wilson’s account, in a Beginning, of his decision, in his early teens, to become a great man, a genius:

If life was ever to evolve fromcester the vegetable into the mediocrity of Lei realms of romance and technicolour,ort to be it would be through the eff great. Therefore, an “ordinary”to be future genius was unthinkable; it had or nothing.33

So for Wilson at this stage in’s his account life, of as for Genet in Sartre him, genius is “the way out that”. one invents in desperate cases Sociologically, the odds were-class heavily boy stacked against a working in the English provinces in thethat 1940s situation: and 1950s getting out of Wilson’s way out was to decide tome become a genius. When he beca famous, unsympathetic criticshis and claims journalists sometimes mocked of genius and sawce them of megalomania as evident as or vanity; bu Wilson pointed out, a rationale34 if you lay were behind ever such claims; to have a chance of becoming a genius,ssumption you should work on the a that you were andld succeed,that you wou becauset, you if were you did no more likely to fail.

We can move now from these generaludies perspectives of to four case st people who feature prominentlyting in Wilson’s– and autobiographical wri in doing so we will be particularlyhies,Voyage focusing on the autobiograp to a Beginning andDreaming to Some Purpose. These are all case studies of people who are vividly evoked were in the autobiographies and who crucial in helping Wilson to srealize Wilson’s his own goals. The first i mother35 Anetta – generally known who was as Hattie clearlya remarkable – person. She married when she was into barely twenty because she “got trouble”, to use the euphemismrouble current in in those days, and the t question was her first son, Colinrst child, Wilson; because he was her fi because he was clearlyand intelligent, receptivege gap because the a between mother andtively son small, was rela andsband because her hu lacked sympathy with her culturaleem to interests, have Hattie and Colin s formed an especially close bond.

Wilson’s father Arthur was a hardut theworker who had a job througho 1930s “in the boots”, as theyshoe say factory, in Leicester one – that is, in a of the city’s two main industries. depression Leicester of was not hit by the the decade as badlythern as cities some Nor butur wouldHattie go and Arth Nicolas Tredell 13 on to have three more children36 and Susan – Barry, – and Hattie, Rodney, whose health was not of the best,re withwould have to combine childca factory work. The family did notd close starve, to but money was tight an subsistence level.Voyage to a Beginning A story brings in this home:

One day I asked my mother what unch”I could (mid- take to school for my “l morning break), and she said: remember “There’s no food in the house”. I being oppressed alla horrible the morning sense we bywere of tragedy: starving. I wantednd comfort to rush my home mother.unch a time But at l she was cheerfuland and when indifferent, I remindedat she her had of wh said, she replied that she meantout to only do thethat she hadn’t yet been shopping, were not that penniless.37 we

Wilson goes on to say: “That morningiserable must have been unusually m for me; I can still remember years,it with and clarity, my after twenty-five sense of the irony everyone of life, at school sinceul while was I cheerf was so utterly38 depressed”.The story encapsulates the economic and emotional precarity of his boyhood.

There was, however,l cultural a substantia counterweights material to thi deprivation; there may have beenen there times in Wilson’s childhood wh was no food in the house, but itays looks books as though there were alw and magazines in the house; hisborrowing mother brought these in (often the books from a public library),ilson and says she read them – and, as W inDreaming , “I naturally followed my mother’s example and read a great deal”.39 Her reading was wide andTrue Detectiveeclectic: and it included True Romance magazines; popular books such as Jack Bilbo’s spurious memoir,Carrying a Gun for Al Capone: The Intimate Experiences of a Gangster in the Bodyguard of Al Capone (1932), and BobDon’t Moore’s Call Me a Crook (1935), the autobiography40 of a roguish chancer; middlebrow fictiononin’s like novels; A. J.assic Crand canonical works, cl for example EmilyWuthering Brontë’s Heights (1847) and D. H. Lawrence’sSons and Lovers (1913). Wilson recalls that his mother’s “plot summariesWuthering of Heights andSons and Lovers made them easier to absorb”,41 and it is striking that she supply had the ability and inclination to such summaries to ease and encourage difficult her son’s reading of quite works.42 She would clearly have made anst excellent teacher and Wilson mu have benefited enormously from havingto such an education at home supplement his education at schoolalternative and to provide an important perspective to that of his father,o, when who his never read a book and wh eldest son, as a teenager, wouldvenings retire to keep to bed on cold winter e warm and to read, denigrated nhim bed’.43 for what he called ‘stinking i 14 Voyager and Dreamer:on’s Autobiographical Colin Wils Writing

Wilson had already caused some other real stinks in his household by means. As well asm to encouraging read widely, hiught his him mother bo a chemistry set for his elevenththat birthday smells in 1942, which meant and bangs sometimes filled thed family to the home but which contribute developing interest in scienceis timethat inwould be so important at th offering him, as reading did, t a of sense his of a wider world than tha everyday working-classt. His mother environmen wasputs also, it in as he Dreaming, “always singularly44 which frank was about unusual sex”, in England at any social level inarly the 1960s.1930s and indeed up to the e One of the striking features oflater Wilson’s 1950s published work in the and early 1960s was its singularargely frankness taboo about sex, still a l subject in print in England atso thathave time;been, this frankness may al at least in part, due to the influence notable that of his mother. It’s also perhaps the most movingDreaming to Some passage Purpose, perhaps in in all Wilson’scount work, of is his his mother’s45 ac death.

The next person on whom we shallet focus who is Maurice Willows, a po would probably bet to completely posterity vokedlos if he inwere not e Wilson’s autobiographicalVoyage to writing a Beginning. – specifically in Wilson describes him thus:

There was something curiously nce.unprepossessing He about his appeara had a thin, consumptive lookingmptive, face, and although he was not consu he spoke with an adenoidal Yorkshire an accent; altogether he gave impression of weakness46 that was deceptive.

Even if the impression of weaknessa certain was deceptive, “[t]here was sloth about him” that infuriateded the Wilson, drive who felt that “he lack of a man determined47 – unlike to succeed” Wilson himself at that time, who had already committed himself tolls, being a genius. As Wilson reca however, “[m]y own optimisticuence idealism on seemed to have some infl him, and this naturally flattered more me into studying his own work seriously. It was then I realised discipline, that, he in was spite of the lack of undoubtedly48 His a poet”.slender volumeLate of Days poems,, entitled appeared in 1951, privately printedeicester for its author by a small L publisher and bookseller49 whose called shop wasEdgar still Backus, there, in Cank Street,In in1954 the Willows 1960s. wrote “The Fool an essay on in Lear” that eventually won himversity. a scholarship So to Cambridge Uni Wilson felt Willowshe road might to success beBut on t Willows after all. found Cambridge “a menagerie50 and left of after adolescents” a year to become a chicken farmer; he seemedtry but to have tired of writing poe Wilson insisted on reading hispoems recent to send efforts and selected two Nicolas Tredell 15 to Stephen SpenderEncounter at. Wilson, the journal however, finding parts of the poems clumsy, made a few emendations off and before sending them asked that they be returned toEncounter him if they were rejected. But instead returnedWillows them directand becauselows to never of this Wil got in touch with51 Two Wilson years again. later, his widow wrote to tell Wilson of Willows’ death from anch overdosemay of sleeping pills whi have been “intentional or accidental”;verdict of “the coroner returned a misadventure”.52 Wilson recallsVoyage how, in after hearing of Willows’ death, “I tookLate the Days volumeoff my bookshelf, of and some of its poems seemed to me exceptionally53 We can hear now fine”. the last stanza of one of theLate poems Days, entitled in 54 “Manifesto”, which seems to be about the relationship betweens perhaps outsiders and insiders and wa influenced by Wilson; it is a gstrange the dead thought that we are wakin here and that it is probably manyWillows’ decades since any of Maurice poetry was read perhaps aloud, noneand that ofn readit has aloud ever bee to such a large audience:

But for those travellers who wander far, Seeking fromglass shattered and broken lives The answering flash of reason for their quest, Fear for these men; in their existence lies Your one salvation,55 and in you – their rest.

The third figure on whom we will was focus his knew Maurice Willows but opposite in significant ways,ion. a very This macho was figure, a man of act Martin Halliday, known as “Flax”t him because at of his hair; Wilson me Lewis’s department store in Leicestero be when they were training t assistants therey called and a youngJoy Stewart ladg them was how showin to operate a cash register. Joys kindly Wilson, as she later became, ha supplied some very interestingn which further this information about Flax o paper draws. His father was anter antiquarian and Flax bookseller in Leices himself was a skilled bookbinder, with so the he had a family connection book world;56 but at that time he had moved in a different direction. A Sandhurst-trained ex-army officer;king and he was very fit and good-loo dressed well; he was also intelligentlax did not and fit a good debater. But F easily into civilian life; athe hefelt saw out as ofits place and disliked wh sloppiness. He reminded “certain Wilson officersn Russian of described i fiction of the nineteenth century:’s Dologhov, Pushkin’s Herman[n], Tolstoy Lermontov’s57 Pechorin”. 16 Voyager and Dreamer:on’s Autobiographical Colin Wils Writing

On their first evening together,ing in after local they had done some drink pubs, Wilson returned with Flaxcted to Wilson his flat. Flax quickly subje to a macho test, as Wilson recalls:

He produced his own army revolver, played and told me that he had once Russian roulette58 Then, withas he it. sat it, fingering he asked me casually to pass him a pipe that lay onbent the floorover, besidethere my chair. As I was a deafening explosion, and the nose wood of the cupboard near my splintered. I picked up the pipehing and had handed it to him as if not happened. “Hmmm, your nerves arehe good,” he said, peering into t smoking revolver.59

Wilson had clearly passed Flax’shile firsthe might macho test, shown that w be an ill-dressedellectual, bespectacled heasy. did int Wilsonnot scare e goes on to evoke the “‘will-to-power’60 the “dominance61 struggle”,game”, which developed between Flax andscent himself. to This involved their a the top of scaffolding mountedret’s on the Church soaring tower of St Marga in Leicester62 – which you can still see near the bus station that takes its name from the church and whichnd is going indeed vertiginously high – a on a demanding seven-mile run63 These from Leicester are to Great Glen. described very vividly, veryphies, physically, so that in Wilson’s autobiogra you can feel the heady danger ofrience scaling the high scaffolding, expe muscular effort of long-distanceistentialist running. way But in a fittingly ex this very physical contest betweenind of Wilson and Flax was also a k philosophical debate about the relativebody and merits of discipline of discipline of the intellect.t While discipline Wilson agreed with Flax “tha was important”, he argued thatt mattered the “only kind of discipline tha was the self-disciplinecated men. ofT. dediE. Lawrencethat the proved intellectual will-to-powere geared to physical could, but theb purposes physical will-to-power cannot64 The mention rise above of its own level”. T. E. Lawrence is particularly that relevant Wilson here since Joy suggests “had some of Flax’stic behaviour characteris inme mind to write when he ca about the ‘physical65 Outsider’”.

Flax reappears in different guises as “M” in in a two further Wilson books: purportedly anonymous autobiographical like manuscript, which sounds Wilson’s own, Originsin Chapter of the Sexual Impulse 2 of (1963), 66 and as Monty in hisThe thirdWorld of Violence novel, (1963).67 The real-life Flax went on to join the Metropolitanok in many Police, where his beat to of the sites of the Jack the Ripper Canadian murders, and then the Royal Mounted Police. According to Joy,ree years however, they heard two or th later that he wasd, back possibly in Englan ined Leicester, with a marri child, and involved68 inAfter the that,business the world.trail goes cold: Nicolas Tredell 17 we do not know what happened to Flaxeading – unless anyone here [or r this] has any morebut information;he lives fors of us Wilson’s in the page books, especially in his autobiographical across as a writing, and he comes vivid and fascinating character.

The fourth and final case-studyfamous we personshall consider is the first Wilson got to know well: his Thenamesake Outsider, and the dedicatee of Angus Wilson, who was Deputy Superintendentum of the British Muse Reading Room when ColinRitual Wilson in the Dark wasthere. writing Colin Wilson recalls that “it He was had impossible not to notice him. greying hair that flowed back fromie, a his forehead, a purple bow t distinctive nosece that and acarried high voiding all Roomover the Rea when he was on69 theClearly phone”. the classic library edict of silence was not his first priority.

Colin Wilson disliked Angus Wilson’sngus “was fiction but, as he says, A the first published writer Id hadat him seen with in the flesh, and I stare fascination”.70 He asked Angus where T. S. Eliot’s essay on James Joyce’s Ulysses could be located and Angus came back to him several hours later with the required information, – itdemonstrating was how helpful he was the sort of information that pre-internetwas much more difficult to find in days.71 When Angus learnt that Colino was look writing a novel, he offered t at it, and in due course did sog aand publisher. gave Colin advice on findin Later Wilson saw more of him andthe would Dolphin visit him, with Joy, in Square flat he artnershared Tonywith Garrett.hisilson p said, As Colin W “[i]t seemed miraculous to be hobnobbingr”.72 But with a published write the most agreeables, for aspect Wilson, of Angus was one that of the “he wa first genuinely intelligenty and working- cultured people I’d ever met. M class background meant that Int had people, met very few really intellige and although many friends, likeivo] Bill were [Hopkins] and Laura [Del-R highly intelligent, neitherWith was Angus, an obsessive it reader, as I was. was wonderful to be able to refere, and to anyoneknow from Homer to Sartr he would understand”.73 Angus Wilson, unlike Arthur Wilson, helped to create a reader-friendlynment for Colin enviroe Wilson, Wilson had as Hatti done.

Angus Wilsont on to wen write more novelsood, and but, receive a knighth as Wilson Dreamingrecords, he incame to a sad end; he ran short of money, fell victim to encephalitis,e anddied.74 But had to go into a home before h he comes alive again, in his heyday,al texts, in andWilson’s autobiographic indeed the act of writingDreaming to Some about Purpose seems him in to have revived him for Wilson too,ut Angus since I he says: “As I write abo 18 Voyager and Dreamer:on’s Autobiographical Colin Wils Writing feel a surge of fondness, for henely was good a kind, generous and genui person”.75 It is a fine and fitting tributeraged to a man who helped and encou him at a crucialself-fashioning stage in his as a genius.

There are many more people who comelated alive in Wilson’s well-popu autobiographicalVoyage to a Beginning pages. andDreaming to Some Purpose are classic examples of the art of autobiography which can be enjoyed by those who know nothingn be of Wilson’s other work and ca studied on life-writinghey also constitute courses.ontribution T a vital to c cultural history, especiallyst that forgotten of 1950s England, now an almo era. But above all, they combineents with in his the autobiographical elem paratexts and other main textsdispensable to form a rich, intricate and in strand in the weavemulti-patterned of his whole work.

Notes

1 Colin Wilson, Voyage to a Beginning: A Preliminary Autobiography, with an introduction byLondon: Brocard CecilAmelia Sewell and Woolf,1969). ( 2 Colin Wilson,Dreaming to Some Purpose ([2004]; London: Arrow Books, 2005). 3 Sidney R. TheCampion, World of Colin Wilson: A Biographical Study (London: Frederick Muller, 1962). The extractsin Chapter from 6, pp. Wilson’s journal are 51-68 (covering the period 26 Marchin Chapter 1950-28 9, pp. February 1951) and 96-105 (covering the period 27 April-28 July 1951). 4 Colin Wilson,The Books in My Life (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads, 1998). See especiallyry Chapter Farnol 7, and “Jeffe Highpp. Adventure”, 51-64; Chapter 19, “The James Brothers”, pp. focuses 196-201 on (the William rest of this chapter James). 5 Books in My Life, Chapter 2, “The Truth about Wilson”, pp. 6-10. As Wilson mentions in this chapterThe (pp. Truth about 9-10), Wilson earlier he had discussed inThe Age of Defeat ([1959]; Nottingham:rs’ Press, Paupe 2001),. pp. 38-9 6 Gérard Genette,Seuils (Paris: Seuil, 1987);Paratexts: trans. by Jane E. Lewin as Thresholds of Interpretation, Literature, Culture, Theory series no. 20 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 7 Colin Stanley,The Ultimate Colin Wilson Bibliography [1956-2015], Colin Wilson Studies #24 (Nottingham:3 “Introductions Paupers’ Press, 2015), lists 16 and Afterwords” written by Wilsone Section for other D, pp. people’s books – se 348-66. 8 Colin Wilson, “An AutobiographicalReligion and the Rebel Introduction”, in (London: Gollancz, 1957), pp. 9-43. 9 Colin Wilson, “Postscript: ‘MyBernard Own Shaw: PartA in the Matter’”, in Reassessment ([1969]; London: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 278-98. The phrase “My Own Part in the Matter” is thehaw’s heading “Preface: of the last The section of S Infidel Half Century”Back to Methuselah: in A Metabiological his Pentateuch ([1921; revd 1944] Penguin, Harmondsworth: 1977), pp. 60-2.