The Hermit

The Hermit (French title Le Solitaire), published in 1973, is the only novel written by the Romanian-French absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco. Summary The Hermit follows an unnamed middle-aged Frenchman—a solitary, ineffectual clerk—who inherits a great deal of money after the death of his American uncle. He responds to this sudden wealth by quitting the job he has been working at for 15 years, and moving to a very nice apartment in the suburbs, where he bathes and shaves, reads the newspaper, eats lunch, dinner, drinks too much, thinks about death, and then attempts to sleep. He speaks to a psychiatrist, who reassures him that a fear of death is very common. He angrily responds by saying that the fear may be common, but it is very real. He points out: Despair has been domesticated; people have turned it into literature, into works of art. That doesn't help me. It's part of culture, part of culture. So much the better for you if culture has succeeded in exorcising man's drama, his tragedy. He has a brief affair with a waitress, but it doesn't ease his anxiety. She leaves him, and he, the unnamed Frenchman, can't remember her name. When violence breaks out near his home, he joins the revolutionaries in the street—and imagines it is a demonstration of his own inner catastrophe, in which unexpected fortune has only led to loneliness, despair, and madness.