What does it mean to be lonely? Thomas Dumm asks. His inquiry,
documented in this book, takes us beyond social circumstances and
into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern
individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally
a lonely self. Through reflections on philosophy, political theory,
literature, and tragic drama, he proceeds to illuminate a hidden
dimension of the human condition. His book shows how loneliness
shapes the contemporary division between public and private, our
inability to live with each other honestly and in comity, the
estranged forms that our intimate relationships assume, and the
weakness of our common bonds.
A reading of the relationship between Cordelia and her father in
Shakespeare s "King Lear" points to the most basic dynamic of
modern loneliness how it is a response to the problem of the
missing mother. Dumm goes on to explore the most important
dimensions of lonely experience Being, Having, Loving, and
Grieving. As the book unfolds, he juxtaposes new interpretations of
iconic cultural texts "Moby-Dick," "Death of a Salesman," the film
"Paris," "Texas," Emerson s Experience, to name a few with his own
experiences of loneliness, as a son, as a father, and as a grieving
husband and widower.
Written with deceptive simplicity, "Loneliness as a Way of
Life" is something rare an intellectual study that is passionately
personal. It challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to
learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way. To fail to do so, this
book reveals, will only intensify the power that it holds over
us.
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