Believe or not, but social isolation as a concept existed before the pandemic of Covid_19, although admittedly never on such a scale.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

In Thoreau’s case, we are looking at voluntary self-isolation. A documentation of two years, two months and two days spent in a cabin, exploring independence, simple living and bonding with nature. A kind of performance act, which looks even more fitting today than it did in 1850s.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The infamous castaway was put on a remote island by Defoe for 28 years. Before you feel bad for him, please take into account that dear Robinson was on his way to get more slaves for his plantation (admirably, even on the island, he manages to conjure himself a servant, “his man Friday”)

Many people think that the book is based on real-life experience of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor who at his own request was put ashore on an uninhabited island after a quarrel with his captain and stayed there for four and a half years. Defoe scholars – imagine this delightful crowd- roll their eyes: there is a good number of castaway inspirations closer to truth. The funny thing about Selkirk though is that the reason he argued with the captain was the state of the ship: he believed she would sink and asked to be left on the island. He was right – it sank and half of the crew drowned. #itoldyouso

Chess (The Royal Game) by Stefan Zweig

Dr. B nearly loses his mind after the torture of solitary confinement by Nazis. With only a smuggled book of chess games to read, he learns it from cover to cover, and his psyche splits into two personas to be able to play. He eventually suffers a breakdown and is saved from prison by a sympathetic physician who declares him insane.

Years later he is taking a cruise where one of the passengers is a world chess champion Czentovic. By chance he helps the champion’s opponents to draw the game, which obviously annoys Czentovic enough to challenge him to a match.

This was Zweig’s last story written in exile in Brazil days before his and his wife’s suicides in 1942.

Lonely City Olivia Laing

Olivia followed her heart to New York, where in a short while she found herself helplessly alone. She explores the themes of loneliness and creativity, drawing on works of Hopper,

Warhol, Wojnarowicz and Darger, and argues that acute pain from being lonely is most felt in a city of millions.

Moneyless Man by Mark Boyle

A book not as much about social isolation as it is about self-sustainability. Mark goes off the grid for a year and documents his experience in detail. He grows food, generates electricity, uses his body waste for compost and does many other things outside of society thinking box.

You’d interested to know that after that year of living without money (and all the social activities money can buy) Mark adopted this lifestyle for good and used proceeds from the book to acquire some free for all land and build a free to stay guesthouse.

What other books about isolation have you read?

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