darger

I watched a documentary that the GE must've put in my netflix queue. It was about Henry Darger, an anti-social janitor who created a 15,000 page novel, scads of paintings, an autobiography and tons of other supporting materials for the novel, such as songs, lists of characters and their status (in the war going on in the novel). It's called In the Realms of the Unreal, "it" being both the novel and the film.

The guy was a real puzzle. He attempted to adopt children many times but the people who knew him (and there weren't many) said that he never seemed to like children very much. In fact he didn't like to interact at all and would tell folks to leave him alone pretty much daily. He barely spoke but in his room he would hold long, complex conversations with himself. He taught himself to draw and paint and used much of his income on photo enlargement and supplies. While he appeared to be uninterested in the outside world, he read several newspapers every day.

I could go on. The man had a thousand quirks. The filmmaker purposefully created the film in a way that left questions unanswered so that the viewer could draw her own conclusions. While I appreciate that, it is inherently unsatifying. Still, it's worth watching yourself and, yes, drawing your own conclusions.