news, sites, and pages of interest about hermits and solitude
Bogancloch is a 2024 documentary film about the Scotish hermit Jake Williams, directed by Ben Rivers. Boganbloch is the name of Williams’ dwelling. The video is one hour and a half in length; the trailer is about one minute and a half.
URL (trailer): https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x93gswu
Here are some recent articles presenting a favorable view of solitude and aloneness.
“Sweet Solitude, Part 1: Two Meanings of Alone,” in Psychology Today.
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201103/sweet-solitude-part-1-two-meanings-of-alone
“[Sweet] Solitude, Part 2: The Benefits It Brings, and the Special Strengths of the People Who Enjoy It,” in Psychology Today.
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/201103/solitude-part-2-the-benefits-it-brings-and-the-special-strengths-the
“How to Design for Solitude,” in Psychology Today. Reminds us that the art of solitude is a skill of observation and deliberate decision-making.
URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/designed-for-happiness/202409/how-to-design-for-solitude
“Spending time alone can change your life,” in America, the Catholic Jesuit magazine; a reliigous perspective on the topic.
URL: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/09/06/alone-reflection-prayer-solitude-248736
“The Beauty of Being Alone,” in TIME Magazine. About well-crafted use of one’s time.
URL: https://time.com/7064919/alone-time-benefits-essay/
Two short articles in Shanghai Daily‘s SHINE news site describe historical hermits of China.
The first article describes the book collecting work of the 14th-century hermit Sun Daoming.
URL: https://www.shine.cn/feature/district/2309138605/.
The second article is titled “Chen Jiru: the hermit scholar of Ming Dynasty,” Chen Jiru abandoned the imperial court of his era to live as a hermit on Sheshan Hill in the Songjiang District. He was a poet and painter whose impressive works inspired schools of followers.
URL: https://www.shine.cn/feature/district/2310186993/
American author John Yeoman and illustrator Quentin Blake published the juvenile book The Hermit and the Bear in 1984. Tagline: “The Hermit was delighted to have the Bear as a pupil, and very excited at the challenge of having to educate him.” An 80-minute animation (French language) was produced by the French audiovisual company Tant Mieux Prod in 2022. A minute-long teaser is available at Vimeo. Summary: “The Bear would like to be educated to become intelligent. For his part, the Hermit is bored in his cave: he opened a school but no one has ever showed up. Fortunately, they meet!”
The website Classical Music, part of BBC Music Magazine, presents an article titled: “Charles-Valentin Alkan: the hermit who composed devilishly difficult piano works,” about French composer and musician Charles-Valentin Alkan ( 1813-1888). From the article:
“Very unusually among the virtuoso composer-pianists of the 19th century, Charles-Valentin Alkan spent much of his life as an apparent recluse. He shunned the concert platform in favour of keeping his own company, reading, studying and creating some of the most spectacularly demanding piano music ever written.”
Alkan’s reclusiveness was partly based on personality, partly on bouts of depression. As a composer, he was admired by Chopin andLiszt, and for a while Alkan even performed publicly to acclaim. But when not appointed for a desired position at the Paris Conservatory, Alkan disappeared for another twenty years. Even as a recluse, however, he was always composing, and he left dozens of interesting works after his death. The article offers links to audio files ofAlkan’s work.
URL: https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/charles-valentin-alkan