An Unknown Woman: Alice Koller

An Unknown Woman: Alice Koller

I don't remember how, years ago, I first stumbled on An Unknown Woman by Alice Koller, but I read it again recently. This is a memoir about a woman who reached a point of self-disgust at how she was leading her life. Recognising at last that in truth she didn't know herself, she found a way to clear some space to begin to discover who she was.
 

This book is what it set out to be: a very honest memoir

This book is what it set out to be: a very honest memoir. Recognising her lack of self-knowledge, Koller found a way to clear some time and start to find herself out. I’m not sure how far she got, but she certainly made a brave beginning. She went with a German Shepherd puppy to Siasconset (Sconset) on Nantucket Island. It happens I stayed there myself, years ago, and can picture the scene: the windswept beaches, scrubland and dunes; the shingled houses. I’ve also lived with two wonderful German Shepherd dogs. So there’s two things in common.

An Unknown Woman struck a chord with the public

An Unknown Woman struck a chord with the public. It was published in 1982 but had already achieved quite a following years before. Koller wrote it at the beginning of the women's movement in the late 1960's. The jacket sleeve of the first edition tells how “it was read three times in its entirety over National Public Radio in Washington, DC.” And, “listeners responded by deluging the station with requests for copies.” Despite this, fourteen years passed before Holt, Rinehart and Winston published that first edition.

It all started when Koller realised she could not hide her age

It all started when Koller realised she could not hide her age with make-up any longer. At 37, she had only one achievement to her name: her Harvard PhD. After that, she stopped achieving, and tried to hide her lack by pretending to be younger than she was. Knowing she could no longer do this brought her to a full stop and a path of reassessment: “If I could only go away somewhere. Somewhere quiet, without traffic or factories. Somewhere where I can be really alone, so that I don't have to be pleasant to people all day long.”

Her PhD was in Philosophy

Her PhD was in philosophy, and she thought she could use her philosophical training to help herself to heal. “All that accumulated discipline can now be shaped into the one tool I need: to be able to say with perfect care what I want to say. I can push my saying to the point of saying what I mean.” And so, through journaling, she embarked on a process of looking at herself as honestly as she could, and reflecting on what she found.

She knew she would need a natural environment

She knew she would need a natural environment in which to heal and found what she was looking for in a rented house on Nantucket. There, her journey of self-discovery began – not only through journalling, but also through the minutiae of undoing everyday habits. She relished the freedom to do simple things when she wished; things like getting up, or pouring herself a bourbon.
 

Her puppy anchored her to the world of relationship

Her puppy anchored her to the world of relationship and meeting his needs as well as her own gave structure to her day. She named him Logos. It’s a philosophical term. I know it as the Greek word that means Wisdom or Word: the one used to describe Christ at the opening of John's gospel. En arche ein ho Logos: In the beginning was the Word. Logos the puppy was a kind of saviour to this atheist woman who still recalled her beloved father's “essential sweetness” during the Passover ceremony. And also, “his concern for the prayers, a concern that set him apart from the rest of us, giving him a distinction he didn't normally possess.”

Relating Koller's story to The Isle Fincara Trilogy

Relating Koller’s story to The Isle Fincara Trilogy, [internal link] there are parallels with the first books. Like John Finlay in The Seaborne [ internal link], she launches out because she detests her way of life. Like Morag in The Priest’s Wife [internal link], her journey towards emancipation is a road of self-knowledge.  And like these fictional characters, she sets off alone. But, unlike them, that’s how she stays. She lacked the spiritual help they receive and the support of a community. I’m not sure that Logos, either four-footed or the philosophical tool, could ever have been enough. Further reading about her subsequent life suggests they weren’t: she never seemed to find her place within the whole. The Neglected Books piece on her by Brad Bigelow offers links to other sources on her life and her second book, The Stations of Solitude.