Vsemirnaya istoriya beschest'ya predstaet pered chitatelem na stranitsakh etogo original'nogo fundamental'nogo issledovaniya po probleme ubijstva chelovekom sebe podobnykh. "O lyudi! O porozhdenie krokodilov!" - vskrichal by snova Karl Moor, prochitav eto proizvedenie. Uilson s khladnokroviem opytnogo khirurga prepariruet soznanie srednevekovykh assasinov i predstavitelej sekt indijskikh dushitelej, perenosyas' vo vremeni k Dzheku Potroshitelyu i drugim serijnym ubijtsam bol'shikh gorodov. Pytayas' vlezt' v samu serdtsevinu mozga sovremennogo assasina, avtor vpolne dokhodchivo otvechaet na voprosy "Kak?" i "Pochemu?" "Orden Assasinov" - odna iz glavnykh rabot Kolina Uilsona, vpervye predstavlena rossijskomu chitatelyu v polnom ob'eme.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
Typical Wilson: meandering and lurid. Good fun. Astute readers who also happen to be fans of the early Industrial Music scene of the late 1970's should find some of its contents interesting and...familiar. No doubt would have been a joy to read for many weird young Brittons at the time of its publication.
I've read several books by Colin Wilson and they all share a common flaw in that they tend to ramble on and drift off from the subject, often citing some literary source that has no great relevance or adds anything to the topic at hand. There is a very interesting section on the Manson family, but if you've read the book Helter Skelter there is very little new information to acquire on the case. But it is a fascinating subject and the book tries to fathom the motivation behind these crimes, however a digression into the works of Dostoevsky sheds little illumination non modern criminals. I cannot imagine that I'd be inclined to read this again, perhaps referring to those highlighted passages that do have some information of value. The final section on Jack the Ripper could be removed and we'd be none the poorer for its absence.