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Monday: Memorial Day, reading
May. 25th, 2020 10:22 amToday is a day to remember the those who died in service to our country. But not with parades or gatherings.
Today is also a day where people reflexively wish other people a Happy Blank, because it is a Bonus Day of Not Working, and get schooled on how Memorial Day is not a happy day. I will just observe this, because it is a Thing, and invite contemplation on precisely how this helps make the observance of this day more meaningful. I have contemplated, but come up completely empty.
We had book group today, because as near as I can tell, the default 3rd Monday is basically always a day where there is a select board meeting. Normally, moving to Memorial Day would be tricky, as the library would not be open, but the library is never open and in our unmoored from library Duration, we just do what works for us.
We had a great discussion of _The Stranger in the Woods_ by Michael Finkel.
Michael Finkel refers in passing to the end of his career as a journalist, for creating a composite character:
https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/5740/
When all that was falling apart, a murderer was busy impersonating Michael Finkel, and when the murderer was caught, he said he would only tell his story to Michael Finkel, leading to Finkel’s book _True Story_, and a movie based on it.
So, in the background of one’s mind when reading _The Stranger in the Woods_, one has to keep in mind two possibilities:
First, Finkel could be making some or all of this up.
Second, Knight could have been making some or all of this up, and spoon feeding it to Finkel.
There are many more possibilities, mostly of the form: Finkel and Knight both have lots of reasons of their own, but primarily compelling issues of conflicted personal identity, to want the reader to find their stories sympathetic and their character one of integrity.
Well, executive summary: I did not find either the author or the subject of this book to have any integrity whatsoever. I thought both of them were prone to expediency, and neither one of them displayed any plausible understanding of how other people think and feel. Which is pretty amazing, considering how magnetic both of them come through as. Oh well!
Knight is the North Pond Hermit, who lived in the woods in northern Maine and supported his isolated lifestyle by stealing from part-time-occupied cabins and a camp for the developmentally disabled. He stole fuel to melt ice for water. He stole food to eat. He stole tents and other camp equipment for shelter. He stole books and magazines to read. He stole a TV to watch. He stole radios to listen to. He stole batteries to power them. He stole handheld electronic gaming systems to play.
Finkel talked to some people about Knight, and they came up with a range of explanations: autism spectrum and schizoid personality disorder are pretty plausible. Knight, Finkel and others focused on how forthright and sincere Knight was upon capture, and were pleased with his cooperation with the terms of his plea (therapy, job, regular check ins). Finkel also quotes Knight describing how awful he felt every time he stole. And he stole many times. Thousands of times. Disturbing all the peace that many people went to the woods to find. People left notes offering to help him, offered him food, asked him what he wanted. He took no one up on offers of help, and while he seemed to take some pride in his code (not stealing new gaming systems to not distress a kid, not stealing expensive watches), as near as I can tell both Knight and Finkel find the idea that stealing the old things sometimes was worse (especially watches and similar that were engraved and had irreplaceable and sentimental value). Finkel and Knight’s focus on how bad Knight felt while stealing is a pretty classic failure to think of anyone but oneself. There was a complicated rule system to simulate Theory of Mind, to simulate caring about others, but it failed the most basic test of reality.
My book group really wanted to find someone to blame for why Knight was the way he was, or to otherwise admire or excuse him. And that is fine! But I figure the whole family probably has some flavor of what Knight has — broad autistic phenotype or whatever. Expecting them to figure out how to best help this son develop was probably expecting a little too much. I felt like the problem lay in the time and the place of Knight’s adolescence: he never found his people, because his catchment area to search was too small, he was too intelligent, and he was born just a bit too early to hook up with nerd culture that would start to become ubiquitous not so many years later. I feel like Finkel is unreliable in relaying what Knight told him, and Knight himself is perhaps not the most believable. My book group really went for the romanticism of the silence of the woods and never being bored and the benefits of meditation. I am like, dude was basically doing stakeout for hours on end, for a large chunk of the two decades plus he spent on the margins of society. There is no way he did not get bored doing that. Either Finkel failed to mention that, or Knight failed to mention it. Puttering around camp is one thing; sitting in uncomfortable places watching for other people to see if it is safe to rob their place is entirely another.
I also finished _All Those Explosions Are Someone Else’s Fault_, which I will probably review separately.
Today is also a day where people reflexively wish other people a Happy Blank, because it is a Bonus Day of Not Working, and get schooled on how Memorial Day is not a happy day. I will just observe this, because it is a Thing, and invite contemplation on precisely how this helps make the observance of this day more meaningful. I have contemplated, but come up completely empty.
We had book group today, because as near as I can tell, the default 3rd Monday is basically always a day where there is a select board meeting. Normally, moving to Memorial Day would be tricky, as the library would not be open, but the library is never open and in our unmoored from library Duration, we just do what works for us.
We had a great discussion of _The Stranger in the Woods_ by Michael Finkel.
Michael Finkel refers in passing to the end of his career as a journalist, for creating a composite character:
https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/5740/
When all that was falling apart, a murderer was busy impersonating Michael Finkel, and when the murderer was caught, he said he would only tell his story to Michael Finkel, leading to Finkel’s book _True Story_, and a movie based on it.
So, in the background of one’s mind when reading _The Stranger in the Woods_, one has to keep in mind two possibilities:
First, Finkel could be making some or all of this up.
Second, Knight could have been making some or all of this up, and spoon feeding it to Finkel.
There are many more possibilities, mostly of the form: Finkel and Knight both have lots of reasons of their own, but primarily compelling issues of conflicted personal identity, to want the reader to find their stories sympathetic and their character one of integrity.
Well, executive summary: I did not find either the author or the subject of this book to have any integrity whatsoever. I thought both of them were prone to expediency, and neither one of them displayed any plausible understanding of how other people think and feel. Which is pretty amazing, considering how magnetic both of them come through as. Oh well!
Knight is the North Pond Hermit, who lived in the woods in northern Maine and supported his isolated lifestyle by stealing from part-time-occupied cabins and a camp for the developmentally disabled. He stole fuel to melt ice for water. He stole food to eat. He stole tents and other camp equipment for shelter. He stole books and magazines to read. He stole a TV to watch. He stole radios to listen to. He stole batteries to power them. He stole handheld electronic gaming systems to play.
Finkel talked to some people about Knight, and they came up with a range of explanations: autism spectrum and schizoid personality disorder are pretty plausible. Knight, Finkel and others focused on how forthright and sincere Knight was upon capture, and were pleased with his cooperation with the terms of his plea (therapy, job, regular check ins). Finkel also quotes Knight describing how awful he felt every time he stole. And he stole many times. Thousands of times. Disturbing all the peace that many people went to the woods to find. People left notes offering to help him, offered him food, asked him what he wanted. He took no one up on offers of help, and while he seemed to take some pride in his code (not stealing new gaming systems to not distress a kid, not stealing expensive watches), as near as I can tell both Knight and Finkel find the idea that stealing the old things sometimes was worse (especially watches and similar that were engraved and had irreplaceable and sentimental value). Finkel and Knight’s focus on how bad Knight felt while stealing is a pretty classic failure to think of anyone but oneself. There was a complicated rule system to simulate Theory of Mind, to simulate caring about others, but it failed the most basic test of reality.
My book group really wanted to find someone to blame for why Knight was the way he was, or to otherwise admire or excuse him. And that is fine! But I figure the whole family probably has some flavor of what Knight has — broad autistic phenotype or whatever. Expecting them to figure out how to best help this son develop was probably expecting a little too much. I felt like the problem lay in the time and the place of Knight’s adolescence: he never found his people, because his catchment area to search was too small, he was too intelligent, and he was born just a bit too early to hook up with nerd culture that would start to become ubiquitous not so many years later. I feel like Finkel is unreliable in relaying what Knight told him, and Knight himself is perhaps not the most believable. My book group really went for the romanticism of the silence of the woods and never being bored and the benefits of meditation. I am like, dude was basically doing stakeout for hours on end, for a large chunk of the two decades plus he spent on the margins of society. There is no way he did not get bored doing that. Either Finkel failed to mention that, or Knight failed to mention it. Puttering around camp is one thing; sitting in uncomfortable places watching for other people to see if it is safe to rob their place is entirely another.
I also finished _All Those Explosions Are Someone Else’s Fault_, which I will probably review separately.