An Unknown Woman

by Alice Koller

A different version of Thoreau's Walden, this universal, timeless book explores the philosophical and psychological issues of self-identity. A companion volume to the simultaneously released follow-up, The Stations of Solitude.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Womens, Self Help, Psychology, Autobiography

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Alice Koller earned her doctorate in philosophy at Harvard University. Except for a decade in Washington D.C., she has lived in New England most of her life. She is the author of An Unknown Woman and The Stations of Solitude and is the friend of Logos, Ousia and Kairos.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps my timing on this book was just perfect. I was the right age, suffering from some of the same doubts, and facing some of the same demons. I found it enlightening and brilliantly presented. It stuck with me, which is all that you can ask a great book to do.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books of all time. Recommended by a friend when I was adrift and unsure of my direction, this book chronicles a woman in a similar situation. She retreats to Nantucket a caretaker of a home during the off-season. Isolated on the wrong side of the island (where no tourists visit), she journeys inside herself and writes...a book of self-discovery. Extremely well-written and so compelling that it seduces one to consider such a retreat for oneself. A life-changing book for me, I highly recommend it.

[Kimber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Subtitled: "A Journey to Self-Discovery"

Alice is 37 in 1962. Unmarried, unemployed & suicidal, she spends what little money she has for the future on a rental house on Nantucket Island during the desolate winter months. Not a good idea for she just drives herself crazy with her thoughts. She has her PhD in Philosophy but not a lot of prospects (or common sense) and every opportunity that comes her way, idea or good suggestion someone tries to give her, every encouragement she refuses to take. I am at a loss on how this is inspiring or compared to Thoreau's Walden. (Thoreau did not go to Walden Pond and want to throw himself in.) This woman needed a psychologist but she thinks she's too smart for that. She could have worked teaching in an Anglican community but refused to tolerate the views of others. This was a tragic story of a woman who throws her life in the gutter but who was not above living off the charity of others so she could focus on her "self discovery." Apparently it never occurred to her to use her gifts to serve others. She is a trained philosopher but is abusing this mode of thinking --even being rebuked by her mentors does not stop her. She is becoming her own worse enemy through her own creation of a downward spiral of over-thinking. Her thoughts lead her into a pit of despair.

Page 199:"He punches the pillow between us. 'What's so damned important about knowing? Why can't you just be? Look at you. You have a PhD from Harvard; you're an attractive woman; you look ten years younger than you are; you're charming and interesting; you could do anything you wanted to. Instead you stare at your navel and talk about suicide."

If only this bull-headed woman would have LISTENED to one person! It could be that she suffered from Narcissism before it was fully understood.

Her devotion to "solitude" and "self discovery" are nothing but retreating from the challenges of life, a path of insanity and delusion. It's a tragedy, and not inspiring at all. Just sad.

[Cindi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a memoir and journal of a sorts by a woman who, at a time of depression and confusion, packs up her life, gets herself a dog, and moves to a remote island to be alone and simply THINK: examine her life, the choices she had made, how they got her where she was, how they affected her psychologically/emotionally/spiritually, what could she do to make meaningful changes. Ms. Koller writes with brutal honesty and complete transparency, letting us experience with her the process through which she learns to see herself.

I read this book during a period of my life when I felt lost, alone, searching for... what? I didn't know. When I read the synopsis on the book it sounded remarkably like me so I bought it, took it home and didn't stop reading until the end, and then I read it again. It affected me in profound ways that I cannot put into words. I include it on my list of "books that changed my life." When I met the author at a signing of another of her books, I told her how this one had affected me so deeply; she was touched and said that many other women had said similar things to her. She was happy and honored that her personal journey had not only changed her life but those of others too. 20+ years later, I still have my old paperback copy which I uncharacteristically had scribbled in, highlighted, dog-eared and tagged meaningful lines and passages. Sometimes I read those parts and it still speaks to me. In fact, I think I'll go read it again.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of this memoir is intriguing - woman takes a drastic "time out" in her life to seriously reflect on who she is and where to go from here. Her disillusionment, loneliness and confusion is clearly very painful and I appreciated her honesty and perseverance in the midst of it. It was fascinating for me to hear the thoughts of an almost-forty single woman with a PhD who lived in the 60s. However, I can't say that I enjoyed this book. The navel-gazing became almost unbearable for me and I found her epistemology so limited and foolish that I realized pretty early on she wouldn't be capable of truly pulling herself out of the pit she was in, which she didn't. She ends her search just as self-absorbed as she began it, and I didn't find her solutions/revelations to be significant. Frankly, if I were her, I would have thrown myself into the sea around page 170 and been done with it. I'm glad she decided not to kill herself but didn't feel like she ever discovered a reason to carry on with life.

As I read this I was wishing I could have sent her a copy of the other book I'm reading: To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, by Parker Palmer. Could have changed her trajectory dramatically.

[Andi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago, when I was in a glut of activity, Bonnie suggested I read An Unknown Woman by Alice Koller. I heard her suggestions and tucked it away deep in my brain, probably never to resurface. Then, Bonnie found the book at a book sale at, of course, the book store where I was working - I couldn’t refuse then. So I read this book, and if you’ll pardon the cliche, it changed my life.

The book is about Koller’s solitude, a solitude she intentionally imposes after receiving her PhD in philosophy from Harvard. She rents a little cottage in Nantucket and spends her days alone - writing, reading, walking, thinking, not thinking. It’s a book of reflection, not action, inwardness, not outward relationships.

Everytime - like now - when I come to a place where I feel the need to step back and slow down (thanks, by the way, for all the support for my need to do this) - I think of this book and imagine myself alone on Nantucket (although I haven’t been to Nantucket, so I’m probably imagining Newport or Charleston or some other beach), spending the days wandering. Sounds nice about now?

[Carol Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second reading of this book. Loved it at (perhaps) age 37, the age of the author at this writing, and liked it at my age of 75. This time I giggle at the fact that she considers herself aging. She has no idea.

This is a memoir by Alice Koller, a philosophy professor, who takes three months to "find herself" by renting a home on the island of Nantucket in the freezing winter, when no one else would think of being on that island.

The thrill of this book for me is the idea of living completely alone with only the company of a new German Shepherd puppy (Logos) she bought to protect her. She mostly walks the sandy shores with Logos. She's actually trying to figure out why her romantic life has not worked; why her many romances haven't ended in a happily ever after; who she is in the matter.

If it weren't for the wonderful walks along the shore, the training of the puppy, the enjoyment of watching the puppy romp and be completely engaging, I might have given up on this reading, but am glad I hung in there for the "aha" moments. (And the dog parts are truly engaging.)

[Jennifer Emmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is life changing. It will tug at you. You will be transported to Nantucket in the dead of winter, and feel how lonely and desolate it is. You will climb inside Alice's head and wonder how she had the courage to do it. It will make you want to do a "solo" yourself, but you will doubt your ability to handle it.

It has slow parts, but that comes with the subject. Self cultivation takes time. There are many moments of brilliance.
I read this book many years ago, but ironically, I just took my "solo"! I went to England for a month, by myself. I was on the fence until literally the last day. BOY, am I glad I did it. It was just as life changing as this book.

I highly recommend it!

[Skyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could find out more about Alice Koller. I've ordered her second book, Stations of Solitude. She has a website promoting her writing of a third book. I'm guessing she's in her 80s now. She often refers to her nickname as"Timmie" with no explanation why. That and other mysteries are not answered by searching for articles about her.

I just wish I had read An Unknown Woman when I was 37 instead of 60! The enlightenment therein, which my life did not provide free time to seek, might have saved me considerable trouble if I'd been able to hear it.

[Landis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great when I was twenty. Five stars! Unbearably silly to me now, at 44. I find it self-indulgent and narcissistic.

[Gina Varga · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a pretty slow read but worth slogging through. I read the first half, put it down for a few months and then went at it again. The second half picks up speed and I finished it in a few days. I won't say I liked it or hated it, only that I found it, and her, very thought provoking.

I had to keep reminding myself how far psychology has come in the 40 years since she wrote this book. Her method is pure psycho-analysis, which is definitely out of vogue right now and isn't generally considered the best way to go about figuring out how to fix your current problems. That said, I do think it was significant that she figured out that she did everything in her life to please someone else & had never really had the chance to figure out who she was at her core & what she wanted to do with her life. Do I think psychology has put too much blame on parents & what we experienced as a child? Absolutely. There are too many factors that make up a person to put so much emphasis on our imperfect relationships with our parents. But we can't discount that it can be a significant factor for some issues people have to overcome.

This point really stuck with me because, at 37 years old, my life is very different from hers in the details, but the sense of living my life for others has been a struggle for me. I am often wondering when I get to start doing what I want to do. When will there be enough time and funds to accomplish MY goals. For her, the realization was all she needed because she otherwise had all the time in the world & only to fund herself. I had fantastic parents and I really good childhood. But my mother is one to put everyone ahead of herself, then get worn down & resentful. So many women, even today, even myself, are taught this by the example of their own mothers & by the overall expectation put upon them by society. It is changing, but it definitely still affects me.

I found her insights about her relationships with men the most interesting part of the book. I married in my early twenties and have often wondered if choosing a mate later in life leads to a more compatible relationship. Her realization that she had to know herself before she could choose seems valid. But as ever changing individuals in a committed relationship with someone else, who is also always changing, I've concluded that we can only "know" ourselves at any given moment, and a relationship with another will always be required to change and be flexible if it is to succeed.

I also found her insights about her own beauty, and the "powers" it gives her to control others, something to contemplate. At 37, I see my face & my body changing & I have to wonder who I would be if I could see that I was no longer considered beautiful. I am afraid of losing my looks even though I know that I have to age. I certainly don't want to end up looking like Joan Rivers! But as I see youth slipping away, I am struggling. How would it be to quit worrying about it. To see it as irrelevant, not a true part of who I am. Not sure how you can separate yourself from your body completely. Not sure I even want to.

The end felt like more of the newer psychological/spiritual movement of today, ala Eckhart Tolle & Byron Katie for example. They both had very similar experiences of complete suicidal breakdown before they became "enlightened" that every moment is a gift that we can choose to experience fully or waste it. By realizing that we can be dead literally, or keep living dead inside figuratively, we become mindful & grateful for every moment, even the bad ones. We can step back and use the Buddhist concept of the detached observer to just watch and BE, without becoming totally engulfed by all the pain & discomfort involved. We can feel things, be human and all that it entails, but be unattached to the outcome. She definitely "killed" her ego, or separated from it so that she could see the real truth behind her life. We are so small in the big scheme of things, but at the same time, in the dualistic tradition of the eastern philosophies, we are also everything because we are one with the Source. She may be one of the first literary modern day examples of the existential crisis & the resolution bringing her to these realizations. Now there are so many accounts of it. I almost felt jaded to her particular crisis. I had to remind myself that each one of the accounts I have read happened to a real person that had struggled to the point of suicide. Never having been that low, I can't even really imagine it. But I wonder sometimes, in my own struggle to get to this enlightened place, if one MUST hit rock bottom to achieve this enlightenment. I don't really want to go there, thanks anyway.

Anyway, as many books that are though provoking are, I didn't LOVE it. But what would there be about it to love? The story is pretty damn depressing itself. But she grapples, in her own overly analytical way, with the BIG issues that so many people struggle with at some point in their life. It doesn't make for fun reading, especially if it hits some raw nerves, but her self-revelations lead to universal revelations that many people have never taken the time to think about. And for that, I would say it is worth reading.

[Susan Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memoir about a 30-something woman who's lived a life roving between multiple jobs, relationships, and places to stay (not homes, goes off to a corner of Nantucket for the winter months to re-think herself and what she's about. I realize I had hoped for a bit more May Sarton, but found a very modern woman (well, of the early 1960's) who had embroiled herself in a frenetic lifestyle which left no room for her to recognize herself. The irony is that she comes to realize that she no longer needs to talk about herself endlessly and thereby seek the approval of others -- though in writing this memoir, of course, she's doing nothing if not talking about herself endlessly. Whether this will appeal to readers seems to me it will depend on whether the individual reader identifies with her particular struggle. As a sideline, it is interesting to hear from the inside a professional and educated woman whose life, for instance, is certainly affected by rampant sexism, aware of this yet yet untouched by the still-to-come feminist movement; a person who relies largely on mail to communicate with friends and jobs, and obviously considers long-distance phone calls to be a luxury.

[Jeanne]

This was a very good book....I didn't like the part where she is contemplating suicide...but other than that I think the book really helps someone to realize why their life has turned out the way it has. Why we make the choices we do and why we continue to make bad choices. This book can help a person to figure out why they make those bad choices. I do think she was missing God in her life though. I think if she had had the Lord she would not have felt as lost or lonely as she was. I think she could have found self-worth and comfort much sooner in her life and would of reached even more happiness with Him. Although she has come to a better area in her life she is still very vulnerable to set backs to her old way of thinking. but I would recommend it to someone who is seeking a way to make better choices.

[Michele Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my life. I read it many years ago. Recently, I found that this book and her follow-up book to this one were out of print. I managed to get a copy of each in excellent condition. I intended to read the follow-up, The Stations of Solitude. For whatever reason, I began reading An Unknown Woman and I came to something in the book that blew me away - it was so timely and meaningful for me. Having gone through that before with this book, I didn't expect it. My life is so different now from the first time I read this book, I mistakenly thought it wouldn't be as relevant. I am now reading it again, amazed at how it still has such impact for me. I will read her next book once I finish. I'm grateful to this author for her honest writing. She has created a timeless work. It has come back to me at exactly the right time.

[Jeri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your own presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement. __ What is marrying anyway? Being able to, wanting to, live your life with a man. Fitting your way of going through each day to his way, so that neither of you is chipped at or intruded upon, so that there is a benison (a blessing) when you meet that isn't present when you're apart. Alice Koller from An Unknown Woman.

This is an old book - I first read it in the 1980s - but the story of a woman's growth is still relevant today. It will start you on your journey to self-knowledge, or recalibrate your course if you've lost your way.

[Diana Higgins · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just could not read this book past about 70 pages, and those 70 pages were a real struggle. I found it extremely self-indulgent.

I was in a place where I wanted to tease apart some threads in my own life and to examine and reflect. I thought this book would be a good companion and inspiration. Wrong!

I kept trying to like it, kept giving it one more shot even though each time I read it I grew sleepy after three pages but the final straw was when she described a big, emotional breakdown about realizing that her mother never gave her affection and I'm sorry, I just could not go on. I found myself thinking that I would probably withhold affection from this vain drama queen, too.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting account of a woman who's been running from life, finding herself at a real crossroads regarding how (or whether!) to go on. The Nantucket angle was a bit overplayed for me as she only spent 90 days there, and her nickname of "Timmie" is introduced so abruptly I thought for the next couple of pages someone else had joined the conversation. One of those books with a payoff at the end, after a lot of "where's this heading?" details.

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was absolutely awful to read. It's narcissistic and self-absorbed. Only the last 67 pages were pleasant to read. I was already in a depressed state when I started reading this book, and while reading it, my depression got worse. It does bring up some very good points, especially for women, but it takes a long time to get to those points. It's seriously made me consider dropping out of school because now I'm questioning my motivations in going.

[Tess Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my all time favourite books. It doesn't claim to be a spiritual book, rather one woman's autobiography but she really digs into the depths of her being and in that process shows us how to do the same for ourselves. She asks herself radical questions and from this we learn to ask ourselves the same questions. This is self-inquiry although it doesn't use that phrase. Great book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Vanessa Largie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I still haven't finished this. I ordered it in the post too, because I couldn't get it on kindle. I am 37 too, I thought it might be profound. Don't know, think its the writing. I'm not connecting. I will endeavor to finish it. Had such high expectations. Thought it might be one of those books that change your life. But not so.

[Greta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oddly enough, I found out about this book through my love of German Shepherds, and the timing was poignant since I had also recently lost a dear friend who had lived alone with her cat out in a remote area of New Mexico. I love this book and have been unable to shake it loose from my thoughts. Maybe it's the appeal of being able to go somewhere for three months and just walk, think and play with your dog in total silence with no other demands on you. Maybe it's the unique love she comes to understand with her dog, Logos. The follow-up, Stations of Solitude published in 1990, provides more details of her life "after Nantucket", and the chapter entitled Loving may be the best account of what it means to unconditionally love an animal that I have ever read. And, the chapter on Mourning, where she describes what she went through upon learning of Logos' death, made me cry over and over, and I could only read it in increments because I knew the pain she was describing. An Unknown Woman was written four years after she left Nantucket, but it took 14 years of rejections and near poverty to get it published. By then, Logos, was gone from her life, and from all I have been able to find out, she mourned him until the day she died in 2020, alone in a hospital in New Jersey. In Stations of Solitude, she reflects on pictures and slides she had taken of Logos and her subsequent dogs. Since she had cut herself off from family, I wonder where these are now, along with other writings she must have been working on for the last 30 years of her life. I hope these will turn up one day. She was a unique soul, who decided to live her life in the only way that made sense to her. But she was a brilliant thinker and had so much to teach about being authentic to oneself and what animals can teach us and add to our lives.

[meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

took me 50+ pages to stop hating this but once I got into it I really enjoyed it. I do think Alice Koller was probably deeply insufferable to be around as a person but there’s also a lot of really interesting ideas in here

[Katrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok. The beginning was slow and rather boring. The end had some good insight. I would not consider this a self help book except the last 75ish pages. It is mostly a story about a women going to live on an island and sort out her life. I would not read this book again, the beginning was a waste but the last 75 pages were worth the insight.

I don't have to wait for special occasions to use it, because from now on my whole existence is a special occasion. Of each thing that I do, I shall now ask, "Is this thing I'm doing worth being alive for?" The very doing is what matters. Even when I choose some future good toward which these present minutes point, I won't let there be hours that I only tolerate. I won't ever again put up with unthinking habit, or ugliness in things or persons. I have no time to waste marking time. Each thing I touch or see of smell or taste or hear during my day must give me the sense of something good in the doing. Pg.256

I'm the only person who can do what I decide needs to be done. There is no reason for anyone else to do anything at all for me. So on two counts waiting is irrelevant. Nothing to wait for, because I'll initiate what happens to me. Nothing to wait for, because these minutes now passing are my life. They are the minutes in which my living is to be done. Whatever I do, I'll do in my own time, and I will do it. Pg.257

What sort of knowledge is this, that it can't be taught either by specific example or by abstract precepts? I think it's that knowledge Socrates meant when he said virtue is knowledge but it can't be taught. It can't be taught, but it can be learned. You have only to set yourself to be both teacher and learner at the same time. What you learn is something true of yourself alone. The reason no one else can teach it to you is that anyone who has such knowledge knows only something which is true of him/herself, alone. Should it be called "knowledge" at all, then, since it concerns what is unique, as every self is? I break off the thought abruptly. I know what I understand of myself up to now, but I can't know what else is still to come. Pg.260

Strange. From one day to the next, I've stopped thinking of them as people to whom my life has to matter in some essential way. I’m the one to whom my life must matter. Pg.263

Chastity can preserve a woman's psychological purity, not some narrowly conceived moral purity. When some third person isn't involved, the scope of morality in relation to sex is so broad that it really concerns what it is to be a person. And that's exactly what psychological purity is about: Can you, without pretending to yourself or to him, be whoever you are and let him be whoever he is and thereby gratify your sexuality? A woman damages herself psychologically if she can't be herself sexually. She can't be unless she trusts the man, she can't trust him unless she knows him, and she can't know him unless she gives herself time to know him. That's what chastity can do: give her time. Historically, men imposed chastity on women to keep women "clean." But the mistake was theirs, in thinking that female sexuality has two aspects. And yet, some women must have understood that chastity was to their psychological advantage, accepted it for that reason, and passed the knowledge on to their daughters. A strange business. In order to understand how to be true to herself, which is the only sort of chastity that matters, a woman must first be what men call "unchaste." Unless it's possible to explain all this to a virgin. And why not? You begin by doing away with all the little dos and don'ts of sex, and you stand back to give the child room to grow into the self she can become. Then chastity for her won't have anything to do with the number of men she makes love with: it will have to do only with whether she, knowing herself, has shared something valuable with another person who is also her friend. Pgs. 274-275

The pieces of my ideas about sexuality yesterday surprise me by the way they fit together. They seemed transparent: nothing screened me from them. I pursued them to their end and found them sound. That’s brand new: throwing off any inclination to look outside myself for confirmation of my own beliefs. All the years I spent reading and trying to learn how to think may not have been a total loss. Perhaps what I freely believe lies buried in my mind beneath the weight of other people's standards, and I have only to try to tear away whatever is foreign in order to bring my own beliefs to light. Think how many times before yesterday I tried to understand what it is to be a woman. Impossible to count them. I've thought about it more than any other single thing, but it forever eluded me. Because I had to use other people's starting points.
I pulled together all the ideas about sex that I could never quite give up, even though almost nothing in my experience justified my holding on to them. Like: it's important to be honest with a man. True. I just didn't know what "being honest" meant. I thought it had to do with telling the man everything I had done in the past. Why didn't I notice it before? that's treating my life as something that requires confession, and treating the man as someone having the power - no, the right - to grant absolution. That's not what being honest is. I'm honest when I refuse to deceive myself or the man about my feelings, in any situation in which feelings are essentially involved. I haven't been honest because my responses have almost never been genuine. With friends, work, anything at all. I don't know how I'm going to learn to find out what I feel. Until I do, I won't look for a man to be involved with. I won't deceive myself into believing that some man standing attractively before me has something to give me. Pg.276

"I don't have to talk about myself anymore." One of those things I find myself saying. What did I mean? Talking about myself was my way of inviting people to think about my problems; to help me solve them; to feel sorry for me because the knots were so entangled; to reassure me; to compliment me. Pg. 289

The thing inside doesn't require defending anymore. I don't even have to think in terms of defense against attacks. I refuse to be attacked, because I agree at the outset that I am not what I've appeared to be. I don't need to talk about myself any longer because I don't need people for those old purposes any longer. I certainly don't need people for solving my problems: I find myself handling them in some way that ends up being comfortable, suited to me. I can even tolerate not resolving them immediately. I can let them go back to be chewed over a little longer.
Problems are manageable. They don't haunt me, their loose ends dripping over everything else I do. I don't need anyone to tell me what I'm like, what I do well, what I ought to try. I know who I am a little bit more each day. I simply am this or that, so compliments and reassurances are irrelevant. It's a waste of both our time for anyone else to evaluate me: no one else can have my vantage point on me. Not needing people frees me to look at them and see them; to listen to them and hear them. That’s what I couldn't do before! I couldn't hear what others were saying to me; couldn't see what I was doing. Now I'm not looking to other people as mirrors to tell me who I am: I can see my own outlines. That's why I'm able to see other people: the glass that used to reflect me is now transparent. I know where I end and where other people begin. Pg. 290

I’m no longer eyeing people as instruments for filling my needs: I fill my own needs. I can see their needs, their purposes, as separate from mine. I deal with problems in this new way that I work out as I go along, and suddenly people themselves stand forth clearly to me in the very space where I used to see only mirrors. I'm inventing my own life, years late. It may be a while before I see all the possibilities. Pg.291

Before, I was too much concerned with people's opinions of me: now I care too little. It’s my way now. I have no right to expect anyone to share my gladness or the bad things either. Pg.293

Perhaps loving any living thing is the only starting place there is for making your life your own. Something that permits a growing sense of being connected, a closeness that's in your power to nourish. You want the creature to flourish because you love him, not because it profits you. Love because he is what he is and I am what I am. Love isn't something to be deserved. To deserve something, I have to be able to work for it. But I can't work for someone’s love. Pg. 296

Someone can't be blamed for not loving me. If I'm not loved when I love, the lack can't be repaired by any action of mine or repented by the person who doesn't love me. It's all right to cry when it is over, but after that you have to let your feelings wither away by not feeding it. Which I never understood before. Loving is something shared, and one person loving without return is telling herself a story. Pg.297

Will I be free among people? Will I be able to guard against trying to please them? I have to remember that sense of being uncomfortable without knowing why. It's a sign that the thing that's happening hasn't gotten through to me but I must avert it until I understand it. I discover that the thing is something I don't want to do, The mistake was mine for not trusting my own sense of discomfort. To guard this freedom is to stunt it, and it's now so fragile that I must give it space to grow. The things that have let me claim them for my own haven't come to me on some arbitrary schedule: they've come unpredictably. I must be open. Not just here, where I'm safe because I'm alone, but in the world. If I dissemble someone else, I dissemble myself. Pg.308

I can't point myself with certainty in any direction. I have no human beings connected to me. I am without power to help. But from inside, the aspect of it all is different. What do I mean? I try to sort out the parts of it and come upon the shapes of ideas new to my repertoire: being alone, burgeoning in it; making my own decisions, insisting on it; uncovering my own authority, reveling in it; seeing other people as beings in their own right, astonished by it. Pg.311

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the idea of living on an island alone to do some soul-searching and to write, but this memoir seems self-serving. What the author was saying about not knowing what "wanting" something felt like was a little hard to believe. I wondered if she, not being able to identify her feelings, was autistic and didn't know it. It is not a novel, so I should have adjusted my expectations in reading it. It was like watching grass grow, but picked up some action and dialogue near the end. The dog was the best part, and I will miss "Logos."

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I credit this book to helping me get through my divorce. There were philosophical revelations in this book that changed my life. I had a friend read it and she did not have the same experience. Timing is everything, I guess.

[Laura JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Journey to Self-Discovery." I loved this book.
Re-read August-September 2017. Maybe not quite so enamoured with it this time, but it's still a worthwhile read. Alice's honest self-examination was commendable, even enviable.

[Hippiemom · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this would be an interesting read. I returned the book after dragging myself through the first half- it was so depressing.

[Melinda Millard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not like this incredibly self absorbed woman but I did love her dog

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book in a used bookstore in Northampton, Massachusetts, because I saw my name on the cover. I know from years spent in bookstores and libraries (and movie theaters) that Alice is more often a character name than an author’s name. I bought this book because it was published in 1981 — forty years ago, the year I was born. I saved it for two months, because the description of a woman going alone to an island to discover herself seemed like the right sort of thing for me to read while travelling alone in Finland for my birthday week, spending time on another set of islands.

For the two months before I read it, I saw it among other used books in New England and wondered if it was a terrible book that people bought in the 80’s when they wanted to read about Nantucket and no one actually read it. Packing it among the very few things that I was taking to Europe to read was nerve wracking. What if it was bad and I hadn’t brought enough to read?

This book was in fact just the right fit for my trip. Perhaps it’s not perfect for everyone, but it was perfect for me in this moment.

What I didn’t know from the cover was how much more I have in common with the author than a first name: an Ohio childhood, time in Boston and New York, time at Harvard, and a degree in philosophy. Though that’s just the superficial list of things you’d find about our mutual biographies, I had a palpable feeling that her entire path could have been mine if not for some slight deviations (and, for which I’m very grateful, the fact that I have a loving and encouraging mother).

The same part of me who thought that dropping my physics degree to major in math (reasonably useful) and philosophy (the most absurdly abstract thing one can “study”) completely understood how this other Alice could have been unsure where to go next with an undergraduate degree in philosophy and so continued on to get a PhD only to discover that she had no idea what to do next.

She also writes in great detail about the men she has dated and her illogical emotional attachements to them long after they’re gone, about how years later the real versions of her exes can bore her, and about how she looks at men as at a menu of options. If I hadn’t recently found myself in an mutually loving and communicative relationship that feels divergently different from my previous ones, I would have sobbed understanding tears of comprehension at the patterns of behavior that she and I have both followed.

Finally, there is the dog: Logos. The cover hinted at the presence of this bundle of loving and bounding energy in the form of a growing German shepherd puppy, but the actual dog is even more wonderful. Alice’s bumbling and eventually successful attempts to train and care for this animal are perhaps what makes her the most endearing and authentic.

None of what I’ve written here quite captures the universality of her intensive process of self discovery. Perhaps if you are neither someone who saves all the letters people send you nor can you imagine spending time sorting and rereading them to understand yourself, then this book won’t resonate in the same way. Nonetheless, she writes exceptionally well, and it’s hard to be anything other than empathetic when someone is baring her soul like this. I leave it to other readers to decide what they take away from the book.

—
As a final epilogue, I wanted to see if I could write to Alice Koller about what her book meant to me and found her obituary from last summer instead—https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/bo...

In the end, she may never have really figured out how to live a life that made her feel complete and happy, but her writing is compelling and helpful nonetheless.

[Gabriella Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️(3/5)
I found An Unknown Woman frustrating and, at times, insufferable to get through. The protagonist, Alice, is written as a 37-year-old woman, but her behaviour and outlook often read closer to someone in their early twenties. She is naïve, overly trusting of strangers, and almost incapable of sustaining herself or even caring for her dog. Much of her identity seems to revolve around the men in her life.. George, Stan, and others, and her ongoing obsession with them feels misplaced. It is obvious they have moved on, marrying and building lives elsewhere, and yet Alice still imagines herself as a significant presence in their stories. This made her seem not tragic, but immature and unable to let go.

What struck me, though, is that perhaps her immaturity isn’t just poor characterisation but a reflection of her lack of life experience. Alice spent 13 years completing a doctorate in philosophy, and in that time, she may have stunted her emotional growth. While her academic mind developed, her ability to navigate relationships and the practical realities of life did not. This gap makes her appear “book-smart but life-dumb.”

There’s also a historical layer: the novel is set in the 1960s, a time when many people lacked the cultural awareness and emotional vocabulary that feels natural now. What reads as immaturity or ignorance might also reflect the blissful unawareness of that era. Still, even with that context, Alice feels underdeveloped for her age.

If I had to guess her age without being told, I would place her at around 25, certainly not 37. It’s as if the years she spent buried in academic study froze her growth, leaving her emotionally stuck and unable to mature alongside her peers.

Overall, the book left me more irritated than sympathetic. Alice’s arrested development is an interesting concept in theory, but in practice it made for a difficult read. Instead of engaging me, her voice pushed me away.