![]() ![]() Christopher Knight is an anti-Thoreau, and Finkel’s book, an anti- Walden. It is a similar act of will that each of us employs to unsee the world that Knight discovered, even though it’s only a few feet in front of our faces. This separation is maintained via conscious acts of will by the cities’ citizens, who 'unsee' anything that happens in the other city. Reading The Stranger in the Woods, one is reminded of China Miéville’s sci-fi police procedural, The City and the City, in which two neighboring cities, Bes?el and Ul Qoma, overlap one on top of the other, even though they remain completely separate entities. Among the more fascinating aspects of his story is just how close he was able to live near civilization, without ever being seen. In 1986, Christopher Knight quit his job, cashed his final paycheck, got in his Subaru Brat and headed south to Florida he turned around and drove north all the way to central Maine, down one dirt road, then another, until. But Finkel’s book is also about what we want from hermits-why we’re endlessly fascinated by them, and why we’re just as often frustrated by them. Michael Finkel’s telling of Christopher Knight’s story, in his book The Stranger in the Woods, explores that question. The Stranger in the Woods is partly about what it means to be a hermit: Tactically, practically, psychologically. In The Stranger In The Woods, Michael Finkel offers an engrossing character study of one such recluse whose unique history continues to provide more questions than it does answers but that culminates in one truly extraordinary story. ![]()
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