'The Misfits' first was published in hardback in 1988 in the UK by Grafton; this trade paperback version (271 pp), also from Grafton, was published in 1989.
Colin Wilson was always happy to use titillation to sell his books. Who can forget the immortal title: The Sex Diary of Gerard Sorme (1963) ? Or Sex and the Intelligent Teenager (1966) ?
'The Misfits' is a nonfiction work that takes Wilson's philosophical concept of The Outsider and applies it to various historical figures, in turn using these historical figures to make observations about attitudes throughout Europe towards sex, during the interval from the 1700s to the 1970s.
But strangely, Wilson opens his book with two chapters devoted to a drag queen (?!) named Carl Harjdu (Karoly Hajdu) who regularly intruded into some intellectual circles in London in the 60s and 70s as 'Charlotte Blair'. Despite his better judgment, Wilson allowed himself to be co-opted into becoming a supporter of Hajdu / Blair. By the time 'The Misfits' was published the two had become estranged over Wilson's growing dismissal of Blair's 'science' of 'human ethology'. These opening chapters in 'The Misfits' therefore provide Wilson's rationale for rejecting Blair's eccentric notions.
Once the two initial chapters are done, Wilson begins his recounting - in successive chapters in chronological order - of the lives and times of representative Sexual Outsiders, beginning with the Marquis de Sade, followed by Lord Byron, Nikolai Gogol, Algernon Charles Swinburne, 'Walter' (the author of My Secret Life), Havelock Ellis, a somewhat obscure composer named Percy Grainger, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the Japanese author Yukio Mishima. Other luminaries from the worlds of literature (such as Pushkin, James Joyce, and D. H. Lawrence) are referenced.
To keep the reader's attention from wandering during these recountings, these chapters are liberally sprinkled with excerpts from all manner of pornographic works.
It quickly will become clear to the reader that the individuals profiled in 'The Misfits' aptly deserved this labeling; they all were quite nasty to their female companions, and were quick to take offense at any questioning of their innate genius. Wilson shows that these Outsiders had their own peculiar quirks and deviancies (James Joyce, for example, was erotically charged by the sight of the yellow and brown stains in his wife's underwear).
Where 'The Misfits' fails to cohere is in Wilson's purpose in surveying the Sexual Outsider: yes, these writers, artists, poets, composers, and philosophers all were screwed up in some way or another; but what is the point of analyzing their actions ?
Nowhere in the pages of 'The Misfits' does Wilson invoke his own philosophy of New Existentialism, nor does he ever make reference to 'Faculty X' as he does in his 1975 book The Occult: A History (1971).
Presumably, the Misfits profiled in the book represent men who failed to recognize their innate ability to use Faculty X to free themselves from their sexual problems and self-destructive behaviors, and thus missed the opportunity to attain more fulfilling lives (and romantic relationships). But Wilson never comes out and explicitly states this, giving 'The Misfits' a rather purposeless character (aside from titillation, of course).
Summing up, 'The Misfits' contains enough Juicy Bits to reward those 99% of purchasers who picked it up in those long-ago days of the late 80s, when the internet and its vast reserves of pornography did not exist, in the hopes of gaining some measure of Stimulation. But those 1% of readers who are hoping for additional insights into Wilson's New Existentialism will find this book to be disappointing.
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