Published on 12, July, 2020
With many of these people, the condition is highly speculative rather than actually diagnosed. Some of the symptoms suggested, too, could indicate other conditions - particularly with people like Woody Allen.
Still... I find it reassuring in many ways to maybe share something in common with people who've made such an impact in their own particular ways...
www.asperger-syndrome.me.uk/people.htm
Mlle Lermontova said:I think the Russian poet/novelist and artist Mikhail Lermontov was, from all I've read about him, and he depicts Pechorin as a very Aspie character (strongly autobiographical) in A Hero of our Time. The phenomenon of the "Superfluous Person", as Pechorin has sometimes been regarded, has been seen as socio-political, but I think it's more to do with his brain-wiring.
I think the Russian poet/novelist and artist Mikhail Lermontov was, from all I've read about him, and he depicts Pechorin as a very Aspie character (strongly autobiographical) in A Hero of our Time. The phenomenon of the "Superfluous Person", as Pechorin has sometimes been regarded, has been seen as socio-political, but I think it's more to do with his brain-wiring.
I've not read that, but it sounds interesting.
So many examples spring to mind now I think about it. Colin Wilson had many of the characteristics. I suppose his book The Outsider gives the game away! He looks at the theme of psychological dislocation and alienation in the works of artists like Kafka (another contender, surely), Hemingway, Van Gogh, Joyce and Dostoevsky. It seems a very common trait in Western creative thinking.
Knut Hamsun's Hunger also comes to mind - a bleak account of a young starving writer. It was one of the models I used for my own work. I find it a very difficult book to read, but I like Hamsun's single-minded purpose with it: his rejection of the usual social preoccupations of fiction, and the concentration instead on 'the unconscious life of the mind.' It's acutely observant, and full of insight about human nature and behaviour.
Perhaps Aspies have a predisposition in this respect. They stand to one side and observe. A bit of a generalisation, I know.... but I'm sure there's something in it.
PS The description of the 'superfluous man' here is quite telling...
en.wikipedia.org/.../Superfluous_man
The conclusion that the superfluous man is 'a homeless man' seems quite apt to me. In a psychological and social sense, I've often felt 'homeless'. National identity, local pride, a sense of belonging... none of those things have ever meant anything to me. I've only ever felt 'at home' with fellow outsiders or nonconformists (or freaks and oddballs as we were called at school).