Quarantine Days in a Lonely City

The Lonely City

Adeventures in the art of being alone

Olivia Laing

The current, unfortunate situation suits this book as half the world is locked out in isolation. The latest figures - 1,224,894 infected with COVID-19 with 66,497 deaths. There will be more, my heart crumbles. Our days in isolation will drag on. So this book was deeply relatable, as it renders the sadness as extremely real. Even more emphasized, perhaps, because I was reading and listening in screens. I read it in an ebook and listened to it thorough the Audible app. "Tethered to our devices, leery of real contact, how we are heading for a crisis of intimacy, as our ability to socialize withers and atrophies."

These days we have "virtual hangouts" in video conference apps, zoom 飲み会, e-numan. Loneliness here is a longing not just for acceptance, but also for integration. 

It's as if the book was written not only about a city that epitomized solitude, but as a preamble for all the cities and entire countries that's been locked out or quarantined. The back-firing isolation that the internet brought, previous pandemics and diseases such as AIDS, SARS, were all soft-openings and warms ups to this virus and future iterations that will emerge.

It's fascinating how with all the grimness and  loneliness, there were bright souls who channeled it to a comforting creativity. The books re-acquaints me with Andy Warhol. It introduces me to Edward Hopper, who's popularity, incidentally, resurfaced in this these days of isolation. There is a redemptive quality in reading about loneliness that turns into art.

One of the biggest gems I discovered in this book, Henry Darger. A Chicago janitor who posthumously achieved fame as one of the world's most celebrated 'outsider' artists. How many more isolated and Vivian Maiers and Henry Dargers are in the world, their works hidden treasures in attics.

What good fortune it is, what privilege, to be merely distracting (if not amusing) myself with reading in an ebook (listening to a smartphone audio book) at the same time, in a world that is locked out, its people dying dying. What replaces loneliness, but an overwhelming sense of guilt and powerlessness, until loneliness returns, reinforced, as it will even when the cities re-open, as if it has never left at all.