I thought I would review a book sent to me by a friend who I
emailed about the concept of suffering. At issue was whether suffering was
useful or not. That issue was used as a social media cudgel against
psychiatrists – specifically that psychiatrists are trained to alleviate
suffering but if they did not people would benefit from it instead. That is
obviously an overly simplistic argument by a person who does not know very much
about psychiatric practice. I don’t want
to get too far afield from the actual book.
The author is Sylvain Tesson who is
generally described as a world adventurer who writes about those adventures. He
wrote this book over the course of 6 months living in relative isolation on the
shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia when he was 39 years old. He is currently 51.
Lake Baikal is in the Southern region of Siberia and it is
the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake. Irkutsk – the 25th
largest city in Russia in on the main outflow river from the lake – the Angara
River about 45 miles from the lake. Irkutsk has a population of about 600,000
people and is probably best known to people of my generation from the board game Risk where
it is a separate region rather than a city.
After reading the book I did research Tesson’s academic background and
he has a degree in geopolitics. He is obviously well read and provides many of
those references in the text.
Tesson’s previous exposure to Lake Baikal led to his
interest in a more prolonged stay at a rough time of the year. He documents what occurred along with his
associations in diary form beginning on February 14 when he arrives on the
lakeshore and ending on July 28 as a boat sent to pick him up is coming in from
the horizon. He describes his motivation for this adventure in the introductory
chapter. The climate in that area is temperate and comparable to Canada and the
upper Midwestern states in the US. He
stayed during winter and spring and temperature ranges from -20 F to above
freezing. He did this with the intention that living as a hermit would lead to
desired changes – while documenting the day-to-day effects of the climate,
changes in the ecosystem, occasional social contacts, his hiking and outdoor adventures,
and the necessary work to maintain himself. It is presented mostly as a
document of what he experienced and the associations (both autobiographical and
literary) that he has with those experiences. At no point was this an argument
that we can all be saved by living the life of a hermit. It is more of a document about a part of that
experience and what others have said about it.
He was well supplied for this adventure including 6 months
of food and solar panels for recharging batteries and a satellite phone.
Despite the relative isolation he describes plenty of traffic on both the
frozen and thawed lake providing visitors and, in some cases, additional
supplies. There was abundant wild life but he did not have a firearm apart from
a flare gun for scaring off bears. His main protein source was fish from the
lake. He did not hunt any mammals or
birds. He had 67 books that were compromised
mainly of humanities titles, but also some fiction and descriptions of surviving winter
in Siberia.
He described high levels of activity across terrain
elevations and temperature ranges. Much
of the terrain was difficult to navigate because of the presence of underbrush,
deep snow, and dwarf pines. Tesson was
undeterred by temperatures in the – 27F range.
He makes detailed observations and descriptions of the nature and
scenery. On some days he is trekking 10
miles to get to a fishing site, on others he is going 80 miles on a 6-day round
trip. He acknowledges that his levels of
physical exertion and the resulting pain and exhaustion are high at times.
What is it about hermitism that is life changing? Tesson believes it is silence against a
background of the splendor of nature existing forever in an idyllic setting.
One of his last observations:
“It is good to know that out there in a forest in the world
there is a cabin where something is possible, something fairly close to the
sheer happiness of being alive.” (p. 232).
It seems apparent that he knew this all along and had to
prove it to himself. Full circle back to
the theme of suffering. Tesson suffered
but that he tolerated it to attain a goal. At any point he could have called
the nearest neighbor, called it off, and gone home. The suffering is over at that point. That is no equivalent to the suffering that
accompanies medical problems that can seem random and senseless. In many cases – people are expected to expend
energy and tolerate suffering not toward any higher goal or advantage but
because there are no effective treatments or they can’t access them. It is also not the same as acute and unpredictable
stress like an accident or natural catastrophe.
Despite seeing his hermitage as transformative he is
circumspect about the experience. He
quotes Aldo Leopold that “hermitism is elitism”. It is not a solution to the ecological
problems of modern-day life because any mass exodus to the wild would destroy
the forests. In fact he talks about how some of that had been done.
There is no description of the potential limitations of
hermit life. As a physician – medical
emergencies and access to care is at the top of that list. To an extent that is
age dependent but even a healthy 30-year-old can come down with acute
appendicitis or break a bone. He is very
conscious about dying of exposure and guards against that.
In writing about the advantages – he does not consider
alternatives. For example, I was born
and raised on the shore of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world and
could experience much of what Tesson experiences by walking 6 blocks to the
lake. There were no bears but plenty of
fishing, ice transitions, and winter sports every year. And all of that occurred in a town of 8,000
people and homes full of modern conveniences. The largest close city was Duluth about 70
miles away with a population of 100,000.
A secondary observation is that the hermit in the woods is a
more honorable position to be in because there is a smaller carbon
footprint. The hermit only uses the
resources they need and does not squander energy or material goods.
One of the thought experiments prompted by Tesson’s
hermetism is the characteristics of a transformative environment. Each of us can probably think back to several
of the environments in our life and not have to think too much about the impact
it had on us. Taking the histories of
thousands of people illustrates how varied those environments are and how
varied the responses can be to environments that are qualitatively similar. I
spent a week hiking through Glacier National Park with a friend of mine when I
was in my 20s. The scenery was magnificent and it was rigorous hiking at
altitude (5393 ft). It was also populated by grizzly bears and you could always
see them at a distance. There were bear warnings every day and we took them
seriously. My friend thought I was too serious about it until we encountered a
ranger in a fern filled valley loudly banging a shovel and his hard hat
together to “warn the bears”. The effect it had on me was “great place to visit
but I don’t want to live there.”
As a physician – the training and work environments are
striking. Medical school was probably the most.
Going from the lecture hall to seeing people dying in front of you to
being responsible for preventing those deaths probably had the most impact on
me than anything. That is probably the closest I can come to an environment
that Tesson describes as “changed myself completely.” It was my equivalent of the Russian taiga.
It also raises the question of what is suffering and these
days – what is trauma? There are a lot of variables. One of the critical
dimensions seems to be voluntariness – whether people choose to suffer or
not. If they do – is there enough
information ahead of time for true consent?
In this context – there is knowledge about what to expect and probably
some experience in tolerating the environment. The example I am most familiar
with is athletes where painful effort is required and career ending injuries are
always possible. Tesson’s hermetism seems to fit this model compared with
unexpected serious illness or injury.
The latter can also be life changing in unpredictable ways but it is not
possible to predict whether the individual would consider the event a net
positive or negative.
A second consideration is what increases our tolerance or in
the more popular vernacular - resilience to the stress. In Tesson’s case he
seems to attribute much to solace, silence, freedom, and the beauty of nature
as a counterpoint to the noise, artificiality, regimentation, and excesses of
modern life. There are Darwinian
considerations that he does not cover – primarily that many people in
populations everywhere could not survive in such an environment.
Thirdly, people often view trying times much more positively
in retrospect. I think back to another experience in my 20s – climbing Mt.
Kenya with a coworker and friend. We were both habituated to 5,000 feet and ran
regularly at that altitude. I have a single grainy photo of me climbing the
scree at about 12,000 feet. We were poorly prepared and knew very little about
mountaineering. The first night we stayed in a hut at about 10,000 feet and I
had altitude sickness. That night hyraxes – small rodent like mammals weighing
4-10 pounds scurried about the hut running over us as we tried to sleep. I was
able to recover the next day and continue the ascent but at the time it was a
miserable experience and I could not wait to get off that mountain. I recalled a quote from Pirsig that Zen
happens in the valleys and not on the mountaintops. In retrospect – I really like that old
picture. But at the time I was not sure
I was going to make it.
Tesson’s literary and social observations are as interesting
as his social and ecological ones. I was
interested in his take on DH Lawrence’ Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I have
not read the book since college. It was widely considered to be an advance in
explicit sexuality and was high controversial in the early 20th
century. It was banned as obscenity in
several countries including the US. Some opinions focused more on sexual life
as being part of the larger life picture.
Tesson describes it more of a “requiem for wounded nature.” He focuses on the effect of mining and the industrial
revolution on the landscape and how the main protagonist describes the adverse
effects on the environment and the human spirit. (p.89).
Boredom was always an interesting topic to me as a
psychiatrist. No matter where I am it seems to be a completely alien feeling. I
can’t recall ever being bored. Tesson comments that he was warned that boredom
might not only get the best of him in solitude but that boredom can kill.
(p. 79). He did not take the warning
seriously. He discusses why the solitary
man must be a virtuous man. He describes
a “double penance” that can occur and
quotes Rosseau: “The civil man desires the approval of others, the solitary man
must of necessity be content with himself, or his life is unbearable. And so,
the latter is forced to be virtuous.”
The double penance occurs at both levels. Contemporary theory just focusing on the
cognitive aspects of boredom suggest that spontaneous thought is a factor and,
in that department, Tesson never seem to be lacking.
Should you read this book?
If you have read any of my past book reviews, I try to make things as
conditional as possible. I recently read a paper on how many people read books
after they graduate from high school or college. It is a surprisingly low percentage and the
same survey looked at how many people read assigned texts in college and that
percentage was far below expected. This book is logistically straightforward to
read. It is arranged in diary form. Some days are described in a paragraph and
the more detailed days takes several pages. It can be read by dates or months.
It is a unique book that ties in life in the wilderness with literary
references. Some of the books referenced
you may have read. The others are interesting
enough to investigate. Following Tesson’s lead – I like the idea that there are
people living successfully in the Russian taiga and that he wrote about his
adventure and philosophy. It is good to
know how one man experienced personal growth and the sheer happiness of
being alive in such a setting.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
Supplemental: I
also want to credit the translator of this book from French – Linda Coverdale,
PhD. There is a 7-page addendum - Translators Notes – that adds significant
details about geology and the history of the area as well as literary
references.
Reference:
1: Tesson S. The Consolations of the Forest – Alone In A
Cabin on the Siberian Taiga. Rizzoli
International Publications, Inc. New York; 2014.
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