Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness

I dearly, dearly love this book. It was a wellspring of information about historical eccentricity and also the way 'outside the box' thinkers are and were perceived. The chapter about Emperor Norton was one of my favorites - I'm now a forever fan of the United States' shortlived existance as a monarchy. The portraits of the individuals featured in the book are compassionate and wonderfully told. It's not at all a dry research tome, but is still full of wonderful information.

As someone who could be politely described as marching to my own drummer, or more brutally as a social cripple, I was drawn to this book about eccentrics. Them's my people. According to David Weeks, eccentrics have never been studied scientifically before the research described here, because psychiatrists only ever study people with real illnesses or pathologies. Eccentrics also usually don't see themselves as being in need of help or as being eligible for study, so therefore they are mostly unknown to science. Another challenge is that the very term "eccentric" has been used inconsistently in different locations and time periods, with the oddballs being treated in every fashion from supportive reverence to outright persecution. Weeks thus embarked on a systematic study of people who called themselves eccentric, or folks who were deemed eccentric by the newly-derived criteria of the study. However, this is not a very scientific book and the results of the study turn out to be conjectural conclusions and rhetorical questions. We do learn that eccentrics are healthier, both mentally and physically, than the general population; while Weeks provides some pretty good philosophical arguments on how those who flout social conventions have always kept society from getting moribund and inflexible, especially in the arts and sciences. But even though this is all good food for thought, this book (and probably Weeks' study in itself) doesn't reach any real conclusions about what makes eccentrics eccentric. Instead we mostly learn about what makes them just a little different, in healthy and not pathological ways. The book is generally fun to read, thanks to the many anecdotes about real eccentrics and their intriguing peculiarities (my personal favorite is the guy who gained a unique outlook on life by walking around backwards all the time), but even these enjoyable stories take on the aspect of a disconnected list, which further detracts from the scientific goals that Weeks announced at the beginning of the book. [~doomsdayer520~]

For too long have the wrong people, who don't conform to the standards of the majority, been labeled as insane. I doubt most people will come close to understanding just how much more sane non-conformists can be. After reading this book, I can now understand why we eccentrics, who tend to not be so socially acceptable, are a happier and healthier lot. If you're like me, I've discovered the bulk of my block towards happiness stemmed from others' ignorance draped through my impressionistic eras of living. God bless these authors for getting this research work done and published!

I first learned about David Weeks and this book while I was looking at the shower curtain in my bathroom absentmindedly one day. My roommate had cut out various pictures from magazines and glued them to a clear plastic curtain and then glued a dark blue plastic curtain behind it to create a nice mosaic. Something nice to look at while showering. Well, behold, I was looking at it that day and I started to read an interview with David Weeks that was on the back of one of the pictures in which the interviewer asks him "what's the difference between a screwball and an Eccentric?" It caught my attention and so I dismantled the shower curtain in order to remove the picture and find out all that I could about David Weeks and "Eccentrics." In the little clipping of the interview that appeared on the back of the picture, David Weeks claimed that eccentrics have less stress in their lives, have bigger bank accounts, and are more popular than those who aren't. He also claimed that they get sick less and usually only need to see a doctor once every decade or so! If you think that just this little snippet of an interview about this book that came into my life was interesting, then you will definitely like this book. I think that this book could save lives. I really do. I wouldn't just say that about any book.

Ever have a book that you not only read and re-read buy buy copies for your friends and new copies for yourself when the copies you have lent out to friends never return? This is one of those books. And just shy 300 pages. My sister Willow is the one I thank for pointing out to me on an outing a few years back. And it is a book that has paid for itself many a time over.Now maybe it is the fact that I have relatives in England or that because of my Moms MPD etc that I am not afraid of those who are different and who have this quirkiness that makes lemonade out of lemons. I do know I so enjoyed this book because it provided even more insight into how we here in the states treat those who march to their own drummer. As one of the authors noted, we here in the states either lock em up or medicate them, whereas in England they are seen in many ways as a national treasure.The Chapters on the Four Hundred Years of Eccentrics, The Scientists, Eccentrics in Childhood and the Eccentric Personality and of course sexual eccentrics are what I savored. Like the hysteria in Salem, MA, in the states that saw witches as eccentric and not acceptable. Did you know that Davy Crockett was described as eccentric by his contemporaries? or that female eccentrics have over the centuries often been from the well to do classes?While great scientists like Galileo, Kepler, Darwin and Mendel and todays recent additions Drrs Richard Feynman and Kary Mullis were all though to be genius as well as eccentrics? And then we have California's own Lillie Hitchcock Coit who was known from day one as an eccentric and a wild woman who built a firehose shapes building in SF because she had such a love for firefighters in and out of bed. She was considered a bohemian and became San Francisco's mascot.And those practicing open marriage sex sans marriage or group communal etc sexual unions like Jack Reed etc were both considered eccentrics as well as outcasts. Yet like most eccentrics and rebels eccentrics amongst the human and civil rights movements, then feminist movements have been the ones who have brought about the women's right to vote or like Margaret Sanger rights to reproductive choices.