What the hell is it?

“What the hell is it?”. American historian and writer Paul Collins’ literary travels, published in Italy by Adelphi, usually start from this question, which struck him when he came across some oddity found in an old book. A cultured, meticulous curiosity rooted in the need to understand what has been buried in and by history. To mark a passion for books as precious tokens of our humanity, books he loved so much he founded a site, collinslibrary.com, to save unusual, out-of-print literary works, but also to mark a compassionate, deep interest for the weird, monomaniac characters Whitman defined as “the endless unknown heroes”. Whose lives the author recounts, for example, in Banvard Follies and that in some way enter his own world, when he learns that his son Morgan, aged three, is autistic. Collins then searches history for a way to understand, and his research results in a deeply interesting book, Not Even Wrong. A book as an exploration, through writing and memory, between sense and sensibility, of one of the many territories lying on the boundary of what most of us think of as “normal”.

“What the hell is it?”. American historian and writer Paul Collins’ literary travels, published in Italy by Adelphi, usually start from this question, which struck him when he came across some oddity found in an old book. A cultured, meticulous curiosity rooted in the need to understand what has been buried in and by history. To mark a passion for books as precious tokens of our humanity, books he loved so much he founded a site, collinslibrary.com, to save unusual, out-of-print literary works, but also to mark a compassionate, deep interest for the weird, monomaniac characters Whitman defined as “the endless unknown heroes”. Whose lives the author recounts, for example, in Banvard Follies and that in some way enter his own world, when he learns that his son Morgan, aged three, is autistic. Collins then searches history for a way to understand, and his research results in a deeply interesting book, Not Even Wrong. A book as an exploration, through writing and memory, between sense and sensibility, of one of the many territories lying on the boundary of what most of us think of as “normal”.

Was your book Not Even Wrong also an attempt to rationalize an event, when your son was diagnosed as autistic, that had emotionally confused you, even forcing you to “reconsider” yourself?

It was indeed an attempt to make sense of what was happening – and  for me, as a historian, the easiest way to make sense of it was through history. The key moment for me as a writer was discovering the research of Professor Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University, who proved that autistic traits ran through families and specific professions. In other words, that autism was not a singular aberration, but rather a culmination of genetic and societal forces. For me, it was one of those few moments in one’s life when you realize that the way you look at yourself and everything around you has permanently and profoundly changed. And the history that this insight embodied – which my own family was just one example of –became the driving force behind the book.

Autistic people often have very special intellective abilities, but find it hard to live and express their emotional world….

People who are severely autistic and emotionally troubled are often noticeably frustrated by their attempts to communicate, and naturally anything that can be done to help that situation should be done.  Some autistic people, though, just delight in different things from most of us.  I’m not sure that Morgan, for instance, is any less happy than other children.  He takes a profound joy in music – sometimes falling asleep at night clutching a French Horn.  As he gets older, he’s taking somewhat more notice of other children, a prospect that both delights me and worries me for all the challenges he’ll face.  But I think it worries me a lot more than it worries him.  He prioritizes differently from me.

In Not Even Wrong you recount how, being at Microsoft during the designing of a software for autistic people, you realized the brain trust of the famous firm was mainly composed of people who often relate to what we consider “reality” in a different way. Do you think this can, in any way, affect the quality of their work, and in particular when it deals with the so called “social” problems of life?

It’s entirely possible that writers or programmers don’t understand a typical person’s perspective, which is why “Beta testing” is so important. Beta Testing is a phase which takes place before software is sold to the public, when a group of customers are asked to subject the product to “real world” demands; they report back to the company with any problems they encounter.  It’s an essential step with software to have this “real world” trial run, because so many programmers are…. well, in their own world.  Problems or questions that are confusing to the rest of us might not be confusing to them.

Can you tell us if and how feelings can be in conflict with or add value to your work as an historian?

I think that, to the extent that I can serve as a proxy for the reader, my feelings and my narrative presence are useful in a historical work.  My work may seem to be about me or my family: but it isn’t, not really.  I would find such a book intolerable to read, and even less tolerable to write. I experience feelings in an illogical and unpredictable way, like everyone else: but I use them very carefully and pragmatically in art, and only to the extent that they illuminate and humanize a subject.  When a book becomes less about history and more about the person telling it, then it becomes narcissistic — and that, to me, is contrary to the purpose of history, which is to see beyond our immediate experience.

Interview by Lilia Ambrosi