[lit-ideas] a little more on books
- From: "Paul Stone" <pastone@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Paul Stone" <pas@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:43:07 -0400
I am still trying to condense my thoughts on recent reads, but I've
run into a snag. Allow me to briefly explain:
One of the books I read was called "The Last Lecture" by a Carnegie
Mellon professor Randy Pausch. My basic review of it _WAS_ this:
I ran into this book while browsing. The title caught my eye. I had
never heard of Randy Pausch, but the synopsis seemed like something
possibly intriguing (something I always like to have in a book) and
uplifting (something that is sometimes nice if not too schmaltzy a la
Mitch Albom etc.)
A man diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer writes about his 'last
lecture'. Apparently, this is an exercise which a lot of public
speakers go through -- even if not actually delivering it, they write
it to see what it would be. In his case, this really would be a 'last
lecture' -- or at least a last lecture of note. The thing that caught
me as a surprise was that this book was really just sort of ABOUT his
last lecture. In other words, there was very little of his last
lecture in it. He would begin a chapter "I then said..." but he didn't
quote himself, he just went on and on about what he had sort of said
and then related it more to his current (at the time the book was
written) situation.
But a lecture, especially this incredible LAST one needs to be concise
and poignant BY ITSELF. In this case, it WAS delivered and by all
humble accounts (his) people were very impressed.
But as it stands, as a book, it took on a kind of moribund tone, not
because he was dying, or because of his writing style or his attitude
(which was remarkably good considering his prognosis) but just because
it seemed like such a pointless thing to do (write a book attempting
to expand something that you should have already done perfectly - and
apparently DID) while you were dying -- because, in my opinion, he
didn't do it very well: that is write the book.
By the end of the book I was perplexed by several things:
a) he was still alive and 'well'
b) there wasn't so much as a single quoted piece of text from this lecture
c) there was a website advertised on the back cover called
www.lastlecture.com which consisted SOLELY of a brief biography with
updates about what was going on in his life and a link to buy his
book. I visited this website about two weeks ago. The biography at
that time gave me no indication that he was on a downward spiral or
anything like that.
I did a bit of research and learned that his 'story' had been
Oprahized and he actually retold his 'last lecture' on there or
something like that and he had turned into a phenomenon. As far as I
was concerned that was even worse to know. It was all so
distasteful...
and TWO years after the fact, he was STILL ALIVE.
Well, last Thursday, Randy Pausch died. And I don't feel any
differently than I did before I found that out (five minutes ago).
this concerns me in that it doesn't concern me,
p
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
