 |
| ★★★✰✰ |
Synopsis: An old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson. It tells the true story of sociologist Morrie Schwartz and his relationship with his student, Mitch Albom. The book chronicle the lessons about life that Mitch learns from his professor, who is dying from (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
***
Review: I first read this book when I was about 13 or 14, and I thought it was the most heart-wrenching philosophical piece of writing I’d ever read. Of course, at that age, it probably was. And it is an endearing story, it is about a wholly good man, and his student who comes to realize that maybe somethings are more important in life than work and money. It’s just that, the majority of thoughtful people out there already knew that. Re-reading this story again at age 21, I find that its is essentially a story about a man promoting ‘great’ everyday philosophies, but to me they are a verybasic summary of simple concepts most of us have worked out for ourselves once wet get past age 20. There are some nice analogies, like a person being a wave that is going to crash into a rock and cease to be a wave, but remain always as part of the ocean. However when I say ‘nice’ I don’t mean ‘relevant to anything’ and I certainly don’t mean ‘true’. I read a review by someone who said a person might find this book ‘deep’ if they are inclined to spend all their reading time with their heads buried in Heat magazine, and I have to say I quite agree.
I must admit the book contains a gem of a scene, especially as its true – and it is probably the best segment of the entire book. It is a tiny snippet from a game where a crowd are chanting 'We're number 1! We're number 1' and Morrie stands up and shouts over them all, 'Whats wrong with being number 2?' It’s a very obvious thing, but I think it is more relevant to the culture of developing humans as a whole than we tend to think – in this day and age, we don’t always need to be number 1. Of course you could go down the route of natural selection and develop what would essentially be a very simple argument on either side, but this book unfortunately doesn’t accommodate such ‘depth’.
Much of what Morrie says is idealistic and the kind of thing to be read once by the masses and then forgotten. I’d be surprised if anyone classed this as a book which changed their lives. Concepts such as experiencing an emotion and then putting it to one side – that’s a nice idea Morrie and maybe you could do it, but unfortunately a person’s character and psychology has a lot to do with such things too. While the story is endearing in how wholly good it is, I think it is in parts a little alienating because most people just don’t actively work in wholly good ways. At the end of it all, I’d suggest reading it for a light-hearted feel-good result, but don’t expect too much. I personally wouldn’t classify it within the Philosophical genre it seems to get listed under.
Rating: 3/5
