The Boy Who Loved Books – John Sutherland
The Boy Who Loved Books is an autobiography written by John Sutherland who is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor at University College London. Sutherland was born just before the Second World War, and the majority of the book deals with the first 20 years of his life. He grew up in Colchester and suffered through childhood and adolescence with the memory of a dead father and an often absentee and always emotionally distant mother. Sutherland is a mediocre student, an average National Service officer and gets a place at an ordinary university. The one thing that seems to make him stand out is his alcoholism which began when he was at school and defined more than 30 years of his life.
I am not normally an autobiography or biography fan, although I will make the odd exception for historical biographies. This book just left me with one thought. What on earth was the point of writing it? I am not sure what the author’s purpose was? Was it to try and exonerate himself for the descent into alcoholism, by using his average childhood as an excuse? Was it a way for him to come to terms with the choices he had made in life and where they had got him? Or was it just an exercise in self-indulgence? If it was either of the first two, then the manuscript should have gone to his psychotherapist rather than be published. If it was the latter, then I come back to my original question. What was the point of writing it?
I have to admit I was reasonably engaged through most of the book, although that engagement slipped towards the end. However, I found the writing style incredibly irritating. It was almost impossible to get into a flow with your reading as every second sentence was broken by commas, asides and additional thoughts which disrupted both the flow and the comprehension. I know people do that when they speak (I am particularly guilty of it), and for a short article, you can get away with it. But for an entire book? I found myself having to go back to the beginning of the sentence so I could link it with the end of the sentence and get the meaning, leaving out all of the extraneous stuff in the middle. It was a writing style that I wasn’t keen on, and that did affect my enjoyment of the book.
I found many of his descriptions interesting and his observations on his childhood and the people involved in it were insightful, but it was all so negative and depressing. It wasn’t that it was grim or horrific – it was just depressing in the same way that a grey, drizzly winter’s day in London is depressing. It just wears you down with its inoffensive misery. Sadly, this was exactly how I saw this book.
It wasn’t a book describing redemption – indeed, he skipped so quickly over his conquering of alcoholism that I almost missed it. It wasn’t a book coming to terms with dreadful cruelty or hardship, because although he had some tough times, so do most teenagers. It was the story of an average boy growing up in an average life experiencing average things. And yes, the result is an average book.
I finished it, but I don’t think my life has really been enriched by reading this. Maybe I have expectations of an autobiography that are unrealistic, but if I had identified a point to this book I might have felt a little warmer towards it.
Rating: 4/10
ISBN: 978-0-7195-6431-4
Publisher: John Murray
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 1 December 2008
Pages: 259
