“The Stranger in the Woods” by Michael Finkel
Nonfiction
This fascinating story is about a man who lived by himself for 27 years in the woods in Maine before being discovered when he was stealing from a campsite building. The author met the hermit when he (the hermit) was in jail waiting trial. The story is really very interesting in learning how one man lived as long as he did, never talked to anyone, never lit a fire, and yet managed to survive sub-zero winters living outside for as long as he did. He didn’t want to be discovered, and he wanted to eventually die in the wilderness, but after stealing over 200 times from the main pavilion of the campgrounds and many, many more times from the cabins surrounding the lake he lived near, he was finally caught through an alarm that rang to the camp ranger’s house. He went peacefully, confessed to all he had done, knew he had been stealing illegally, and welcomed whatever punishment they chose for him.
The author interviewed the hermit (who seems extremely anti-social and autistic), family members, people who had assessed him after his capture, people who had lived in the cabins he stole from. The hermit (Chris Knight), never stole anything he thought was valuable, and only took what he thought was a real need, books included — for leisure.
Probably the more interesting parts of the book for me were learning how he survived, what he thought was important, and his ideas on people and life. I come away from this with the conclusion that this man although very smart, seems kind of nuts by normal standards, but perhaps totally normal by hermit standards — if that makes sense. It was definitely interesting.
Quotes:
“Nature, Knight clarified is brutal. The weak do not survive, and neither do the strong. Life is a constant, merciless fight that everyone loses.”
“He was confounded by the idea that passing the prime of your life in a cubicle, spending hours a day at a computer, in exchange for money, was considered acceptable, but relaxing in a ten in the woods was disturbed. Observing the trees was indolent; cutting them down was enterprising. What did Knight do for a living? He lived for a living.”
“The world is a confusing place, meaningful and meaningless at once.”
“He has seen the bottomless nonsense of our world and has decided, like most of us, to simply try to tolerate it.”
“We live locked in our own heads and can never entirely know the experience of another person. Even if we’re surrounded by family and friends, we journey into death completely alone.”
