Monday 10 May 2010

More memoirs

I just read A Grief Observed by C S Lewis. It is a famous book, of course, but I didn't get much out of it. Now I'm reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I'm enjoying it so much. It's a memoir of an American childhood and it is really a very interesting book. What makes it so fascinating is that the reader doesn't know how to judge, or where to place their sympathies. In essence, Jeannette Walls parents (particularly her mother) were people of very high principles who had many inspiring ideas about how life should be lived. And yet because they carried those principles to extremes they were the world's most terrible parents. A great read. I thoroughly recommend it.