Fenton Johnson makes the case for solitude in At the Center of all Beauty. In this non-fiction meditation, the novelist (The Man Who Loved Birds) distinguishes between being single and being solitary—the latter is not an absence but can be a positive choice, even a vocation. What use is there to sit alone painting, writing, reading, watching? One answer is that creativity can flourish in solitude. Johnson adds that solitude can be achieved in couples or in community. Paradoxically, even as the sticky connectivity of social media grows denser, people are opting to go alone in greater numbers than before. Johnson rounds out his thesis by examining the lives of diverse solitaries, including Paul Cézanne, Nina Simone and Rabindranath Tagore. He offers many bright thoughts.
