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Chronicles of Wasted Time: An Autobiography
Back in print for the first time since Muggeridge's death in 1990, both published volumes of his acclaimed biography-The Green Stick and The Infernal Grove, plus the previously unpublished start to an unfinished third volume entitled The Right Eye-all brought together in one unabridged volume. "There is not a flat page in this mingling of anecdote, comment and self-critici
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Paperback
,
568 pages
Published
September 1st 2006
by Regent College Publishing
(first published 1989)
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Possibly the greatest English autobiography of the 20th century. Even though he didn't manage to finish it. Even though he shaved the truth in spots. One of the handful of books which, after finishing it, had made my sides literally sore with laughing (the first time that happened was in my teens with "Don Quixote").
The collected version of Malcolm Muggeridge's memoirs, The Green Stick and The Infernal Grove (along with the posthumously published snippet from the start of his third volume The Right Eye) form a wonderful encapsulation of the major events of the Twentieth Century. Muggeridge was there for it all and he tells it with just the right amount of detail and a devastating wit (some of the sections were laugh out loud funny). It is also a sort of pilgrim's progress from naivety to worldly experience.
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Apr 24, 2014
David
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Any thoughtful person, especially Christian
Recommended to David by:
Just saw it at sale and remembered enjoying Muggeridge long ago
At the end, was tempted to give it four stars, but I enjoyed it so much along the way that five stars seemed right. Apparently Muggeridge intended to write another volume to complete the story of his life, but wasn't to be. This ends at the end of World War II. I'd have liked that third volume to see how he completed his immersion in Christianity.
Am now reading a couple of his "religious" books written about the same time as this memoir . . . as one might expect, lots of consistency.
While much o ...more
Am now reading a couple of his "religious" books written about the same time as this memoir . . . as one might expect, lots of consistency.
While much o ...more
This book was very long and he can spend an inordinate amount of time on little details. However, I really liked this book , Malcolm has that rare ability to see clearly when the majority disagree with him. Watching him change his beliefs through his life was fascinating.
Called one of the best autobiographies of the 20th century.
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Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy. He is credited with popularising Mother Teresa and in his later years became a Catholic.
More about Malcolm Muggeridge...
“All this was only, in my father's estimation, a means; the end was the Earthly Paradise, the translation of William Morris's 'News from Nowhere' into 'News from Somewhere.' Then Whitman's sense of abounding joy in his own and all creation's sensuality would sweep away the paltry backwaters of bourgeois morality; the horrors of industrial ugliness which Ruskin so eloquently denounced would dissolve, and die forgotten as a dream (phrases from hymns still washed about in my father's mind) as slums were transformed into garden cities, and the belching smoke of hateful furnaces into the cool elegance of electric power. As for the ferocious ravings of my namesake, Carlyle, about the pettifogging nature of modern industrial man's pursuits and expectations -- all that would be corrected as he was induced to spend ever more of his increasing leisure in cultural and craft activities; in the enjoyment of music, literature and art.
It was pefectly true -- a point that Will Straughan was liable to bring up at the Saturday evening gatherings -- that on the present form the new citizenry might be expected to have a marked preference for dog-racing over chamber music or readings from 'Paradise Lost,' but, my father would loftily point out, education would change all that. Education was, in fact, the lynchpin of the whole operation; the means whereby the Old Adam of the Saturday night booze-up, and fondness for Marie Lloyd in preference to Beatrice Webb, would be cast off, and the New Man be born as potential fodder for third Programmes yet to come.”
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It was pefectly true -- a point that Will Straughan was liable to bring up at the Saturday evening gatherings -- that on the present form the new citizenry might be expected to have a marked preference for dog-racing over chamber music or readings from 'Paradise Lost,' but, my father would loftily point out, education would change all that. Education was, in fact, the lynchpin of the whole operation; the means whereby the Old Adam of the Saturday night booze-up, and fondness for Marie Lloyd in preference to Beatrice Webb, would be cast off, and the New Man be born as potential fodder for third Programmes yet to come.”
