Book Description
No woman alive today has inspired so many with her simplicity of faith and compassion so all-encompassing. As she daily embraces the "least of the least" in her arms, Mother Theresa challenges the whole world to greater acts of service and understanding in the name of love.
First published in 1971, this classic work introduced Mother Theresa to the Western World. As timely now as it was then, Something Beautiful for God interprets her life through the eyes of a modern-day skeptic who became literally transformed within her presence, describing her as "a light which could never be extinguised."
Customer Reviews:
malcolm on mother.......2007-01-18
Late in his adult life the renowned agnostic Malcolm Muggeridge converted to Christianity through the influence of Mother Teresa (1910-1997). In 1959 he interviewed Mother Teresa, and then ten years later made a television documentary of her life for the BBC. To honor her beatification in October 2003, Harper reissued the book version of these two efforts as a short, popular biography. Muggeridge reviews how Mother Teresa left her very satisfying call as a high school teacher and followed her "call within a call" to love the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Under her direction, and convinced that every person should be able to die within sight of a loving face, no person was ever refused. Today, the Missionaries of Charity which she founded have houses in almost every country of the world. Evocative black and white photos accompany Muggeridge's powerful story-telling.
This book is truly beautiful.......2004-07-13
This book is expressly concerned with the work Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity do together in Calcutta and elsewhere for the poorest of the poor, written by a man who worked for many years in the same city and who much admired her work. It is full of anecdotes about her life and work and provides a pretty good summary of the major events. We know Mother Teresa for the great love that she poured out on the poor but at the very heart of all she did was her great love for God. "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" was one of her favorite sayings. Yet Muggeridge had never met anyone less sentimental, less scatty, more down-to-earth. Mother Teresa took a very practical view of money as her needs grew. When the Pope visited India he presented her with his white ceremonial motor car but she never so much as took a ride in it, organizing a raffle and raising enough money to start her leper colony.
The author tells us that while teaching Mother Teresa received her call within a call - to work with the poorest of the poor rather than in her Loreto school convent with its pleasant garden, eager schoolgirls, congenial colleagues and rewarding work. When her release came, she stepped out with a few rupees in her pocket, made her way to the poorest, wretchedest part of the city, found a lodging there, gathered together a few abandoned children and began her ministry of love. To choose, as Mother Teresa did, to live in the slums of Calcutta, amidst all the dirt, disease and misery, signified a spirit so indomitable, a faith so intractable, a love so abounding, that the writer felt abashed.
Following the instructions of her Lord, Mother Teresa regarded every derelict left to die in the streets as Him; she heard every cry of abandoned children, even the tiny squeak of the discarded foetus, as the cry of the Bethlehem child; she recognized in every Leper's stumps the hands which once touched sightless eyes and made them see. What the poor needed, Mother Teresa was fond of saying, even more than food and clothing and shelter (though they need these, too, and desperately) is to be wanted. It is the outcast state their poverty imposes upon them that is the most agonizing. She had a place in her heart for them all. To her, they were all children of God, for whom Christ died. The author never experienced so perfect a sense of human equality as with Mother Teresa among her poor. Her love for them made them equal, as brothers and sisters within a family are equal. This is the only equality there is on earth, and it cannot be embodied in laws, enforced by coercion, or promoted by protest and upheaval, deriving, as it does, from God's love, which, like the rain from heaven, falls on the just and the unjust, on the rich and poor, alike. The nuns all eat the same food, wear the same clothes, and possess as little as their clients - the poorest of the poor. The nuns are not permitted to have a fan or any other mitigations of life in Bengal's sweltering heat. Even at prayers, the clamor and discordance of the street outside intrude, lest they should forget why they are there and where they belong.
Critics point out that statistically speaking Mother Teresa and the sisters achieved little but in Muggeridge's view Christianity is not a statistical view of life. Welfare is for a purpose while love is for a person. The one is about numbers while the other is about a person who is also God. The God Mother Teresa worships cannot see a sparrow fall to the ground without concern.
I found Malcom Muggeridge's portrayal of Mother Teresa penetrating, very helpful and in a small volume you receive a good idea of the woman who may well be recognized as a saint during our lifetime. Sadly, some of our churches appeal to only a small congregation; for someone concerned with why their message is not getting over as effectively as they might wish, there could be no better way than studying this book and learning more about Mother Teresa's way of expressing love.
This book is truly something beautiful
The Beauty of God in a Nun.......2004-05-15
Among the hundreds of books written on Mother Teresa and her ministry, this is one of the earliest and the best. It has the very words of Mother Teresa with regard to her life, vocation and apostolate. The photographs and interviews included in the book make the portrayal of this nun and her work almost complete. Making a TV program about her and writing this book, were life-changing experiences for Malcolm Muggeridge. For someone planning to learn about Mother Teresa this may be the book to begin with.
Muggeridge's Mother Teresa: real or myth?.......2004-02-14
Malcolm Muggeridge did indeed introduce Mother Teresa to the Western World as the book description said. Subsequently her name recognition is greater than Muggeridge's nowadays. Thus people might not have an idea of what a nasty person Muggeridge was. This makes people who know Muggeridge obviously skeptical of people he presents as saintly. Christopher Hitchens book about Mother Teresa, "The Missionary Position" gives you another view of Mother Teresa.
If you want to read about a truly holy Catholic who cared for the poor, read the book "Oscar Romero", about Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was made a martyr at the altar while saying mass in El Salvador.
Truly Beautiful.......2002-05-11
This really isn't a biography of Mother Teresa so much as it is a document in reflection on one man's encounters with her. Mother Teresa is such a dynamic and profound personality, indeed so much a reflection of her Savior, that just meeting her has inspired much reflection, conviction, and devotion in the mind and heart of Malcolm Muggeridge. She is that rare persona who somehow ascends past celebrity status. Celebrities, in the end, are entertainment. Mother Teresa's presence and personality are much more than entertainment: with hardly a word she challenges and changes people. The best parts of this book have more to do with Muggeridge's inner searching than with Teresa's life and work.
I'm sure that she would shy away from all this praise. Yet truly she is a reflection of her Savior, which is her heart's desire. This strange and unearthly power she has to affect lives with nothing more than her presence perhaps can help us understand how an illiterate carpenter from the backwaters of the world managed to split history in half and utterly turn the world upside down. When you draw near to God, even just a reflection of Him, you cannot help but be changed.
What I love most about Mother Teresa, what inspires and challenges me the most, is her ability, maybe even insistence, in seeing Christ in the poor and destitute that she cared for. He said `whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me' and she takes it seriously -- and the result is beautiful beyond comparison. It makes my heart leap.
Thank you, Lord, for sending us a woman like your servant Teresa to remind us of your face, your call, and your love. We are eternally grateful.
Book Description
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-criticism. . . . An international throng of writers, politicians, soldiers, spies, traitors and eccentrics jostles in these page from Attlee to Wodehouse via Burgess and Philby, Churchill, de Gaulle, Gide, Chanel, Montgomery, Evelyn Waugh." -The Daily Telegraph "Much of it . . . is very funny indeed; his description of being inducted into the mysteries of invisible writing when he joined the M16, for instance, is one of the great comic set-pieces that are artfully placed throughout the book. . . . Apart from these, the wit sparkles on almost every page." -The Observer ". . . this is one of the most delightful and entertaining memoirs of our age." -The Washington Post "A sure hand pushes the pen; a splendid mind guides the hand. There are paragraphs in this book that . . . are models of the best of clarity, grace and beauty in the English language." -The Dallas Morning News Born in 1903, Malcolm Muggeridge started his career as a university lecturer in Cairo before taking up journalism. As a journalist he worked around the world on the Guardian, Calcutta Statesman, the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph. In 1953 became editor of Punch, where he remained for four years. In later years he became best known as a broadcaster both on television and radio for the BBC. His other books include Jesus Rediscovered, Christ and the Media, and A Third Testament.
Customer Reviews:
Lots to chew on..........2007-05-07
This book is what I call "chewy" - not one to just breeze through in a day or two as you would a bestseller. There is a lot going on here. I think MM had a manic-depressive disorder, and that comes to light in his other autobiographical book (of his diaries) as well. Interesting to read about his
rocky journey through all the highs and lows, and how he finally finds serenity later in life.
Muggeridge; Spy, Sinner, Sage and Saint.......2006-10-16
It is almost sixteen years since the death of this great writer, broadcaster, actor, soldier-spy and latterly Christian apologist and his voice is greatly missed, particularly at this time with so many major and controversial issues dominating the news agenda. Because love him or loathe him, Muggeridge always had a unique, and often tangental, view to offer on the significant events of the day.
Without doubt, Chronicles was his greatest work and should be compulsory reading for anyone learning English literature, for it will be found a totally engrossing read, start to finish. Spanning the early part of the twentieth century, Muggeridge was a master in use of the English language and his love of writing comes out on every page, together with his wit and wisdom. The Malcolm Muggeridge Society is bringing more of his work back into print and I'd like to think that it will be read not by existing fans but by a new generation.
Publishing Event of the (Last) Century.......2006-10-12
While I don't claim to have read everything in English, this is the best-written book I've ever read. I remember hoping not to pass on before I'd finished it. Five stars is not enough for this absolutely delightful book, or rather two books. It was originally published in two volumes, "The Green Stick" and "The Infernal Grove", both included here. This is the first edition to include the remnants of the barely-begun third volume, "The Right Eye" (the Chronicles were to have been a trilogy).
Thanks to the efforts of the Malcolm Muggeridge Society in London, here are all three (or two and a bit) books together. What's more, the introduction is by Ian Hunter, who penned his own riveting bio of MM, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life, as well as assembling short bits and shreds from hither and yon in The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge.
To my view, the Chronicles are the very best of MM. Were he to have some place in the literature of the last century, this is the book that would assure it. Not that he would want a place. He considered himself a journalist, not a writer, or as he loved to quote St. Augustine, "a vendor of words". However, as Ian Hunter reveals, he was not simply an observer but a player on the scene of the most tumultuous century in history. As biographer Richard Ingrams has noted, he seemed to know everyone and be everywhere.
In a sense, there was a third book, called Conversion, which appeared instead of The Right Eye. It's the only book he wrote after becoming a Roman Catholic in 1982, and appeared with various subtitles. It's not, as one might think, about becoming an RC, although it does cover that. Oddly enough it's written in the third person, and subject-wise takes up where his book and TV show, A Third Testament, left off, in chronicling his various inspirations. It's best read after the Chronicles, as he retreads some of the same ground, commenting and adding anecdotal reflections.
As much as one would long to read The Right Eye in its entirety, this is all we have. One imagines him reciting that third book somewhere to rollicking applause, for closing this volume one gets the sense that even after a long and prolific life he left us much too soon, and with music still in him.
One of the best biographies of the last century!! Malcolm rocks!.......2006-01-31
I have only recently discovered Malcolm Muggeridge's writings, and wow! what a man, what an awesome writer! He can make you laugh, cry, and scream all in the same paragraph. I could not put this book down, even though at first it seemed way too long. Every page was crisp with details of a fascinating life! Truly an inspiring, unforgettable memoir.
Fabulously Written Autobiography - Funny, Spiritual.......2001-03-12
For those who don't know, Muggeridge was a British journalist - editor of Punch, television journalist, etc. He was raised among some of the most "forward thinking" (an ironic phrase) socialist minded, trendy (naturist, vegetarian, etc.) people in London - very much a Fabian set. In his 30s, after he had been a policeman in India and a journalist in the U.S.S.R., he underwent an awakening to the fraud in much of the "progressive thinking" with which he had been inculcated and by which was completely adopted by all his right-thinking journalistic and political circles. He underwent a religious conversion to a high Anglican church (I think - or is it Catholic?) belief - it was later he who publicized Mother Theresa to the world. He is quite moving in describing his religious beliefs and is among the finest prose writers I've ever read - shockingly out of synch with secular modern ideas, and truly an original. He's terribly funny in his tales of the absurdity of Emperor without Clothes leaders and thinkers of the 20th century - particularly those who believe that collective policies by governments can improve mankind. He is as humorously cynical about man and his pathetic attempts to "improve himself" as anyone you'll ever read. He is also truly a fantastic prose writer - these two successive volumes in one are beautifully written and moving.
Book Description
Based on a celebrated TV series, these illuminating portraits bring to life seven famous men in search of God.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent for its purpose, but is limited.......2007-05-25
This is an excellent read, especially for those not familiar with the writings of the people discussed. It is a kind of survey, an easy way to be exposed to a wide range of beliefs on spirituality. However, keep in mind that "spiritual wandings" is only one aspect of each person; there is much more than that to each. If one reads the writings of all these people, one will realize that there is much more to each, and some are very complex. For example, you would have to read a lot by Tolstoy to begin to really understand what his thoughts were, which covered many aspects of life and thought beyond spirituality. I suggest you read the book, then buy others on someone you especially like. Perhaps read a bit about them (the internet is a good source) before reading a bit by them.
barely scratches the surface.......2007-05-19
The writers reviewed here in this work are great men of faith and explorers of truth. If you want to become mildly acquainted with these men, this is an ok start--but little more than an expanded wikipedia biography. These writers are worthy enough to be looked at directly, not through this sort of heavy filter. Go buy their books, not this one.
So Much in So Few Pages.......2006-10-03
That's the value of this classic. It gives you a sophisticated introduction to several great thinkers and prophets who searched for God. Muggeridge was, as others have noted, himself a prophet of the madness of his century and the twenty-first century. Here we have the sort of sensitive and perceptive introduction to great thinkers that induces us to read their original works. For a detailed review, see my blog above for Oct. 3, 2006. (Note: the older hardcover edition I read did not include Dostoevsky.)
Excellent biography.......2006-06-26
Muggeridge gives almost an insiders view of what shaped the lives of these great men of the faith. Its almost like he was there witnessing their lives and tagged along with them in their "good times and bad times".
Elementary, my dear.......2006-01-20
Honestly, I didn't finish this book. I didn't even get very far. It sounds wonderful, a book about some of the greatest Christian minds. It reads like a 4th-graders research paper. Muggeridge inserts so much of his own thoughts and experiences its almost like we're reading his biography. His bios of these brilliant men are muddled, not described chronologically or in any other apparent order. If you want a VERY basic overview of these men, maybe this book is for you. If you actually have the intelligence to read anything written by any of them - this book is far beneath you.
Customer Reviews:
Christianity vs. Churchianity.......2007-09-02
... is Jesus rediscovered. Starts off turgid but improves, if unevenly. That is, it meanders - as though the author is thinking through his theology as he talks to his readers. It is not well thought out; excellent insights are interspersed with many head scratching moments. The older British language and presentation style is not the smart pithy sound bites that grab the modern reader, but a working out of the Jesus as the author has discovered Him.
I did appreciate his turn from a rabid socialist upbringing, to disenchantment (he was in that group of foreign reporters in the Soviet Union who fawned over the tyrant Stalin which was an early red flag in his shift away from his background), to discovering Jesus in middle age.
Most of the material is from the late 1960's, and Muggeridge looks prescient indeed as he ruminates on the future of the church and the culture poised then at the precipice of that cliff over which the 60's counter-culture lept with such elan. I found this more informed than his theology. There are several good nuggets to chew on, but they tended to be more on what fills the gap when Christianity recedes from the culture, the media and education.
He uses some memorable word pictures. Here's one: it is a source of terrific weakness that the great majority of official churchmen don't believe what they purport to believe. He likens these "pillars" of the church to those in an Italian renaissance painting: they look like pillars, but they don't hold anything up.
The summation with the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi is a perfect close to remind us to be about the Lord's work as His instruments in our culture. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
and so on brings his message back to the simplicity of being a follower of Jesus Christ. And that is what we are all encouraged to rediscover.
Worth Considering, But Not to Be Taken Completely.......2004-03-01
Muggeridge is right about the bias of the secular establishment. Media and educational institutions attack Christianity on a regular basis. The weakness is in Muggeridge's theological explanations. In some areas he's simply wrong. So one can take this book as a defense of the faith from one who means well, but is uninformed.
Muggeridge sees Western civilization being underminded in that as Christianity is removed from the public square, evil replaces it and fills the void with the exact opposite of what was handed down from previous generations. He has some excellent thoughts on giving one's self to the work at hand.
Book Description
Malcom Muggeridge (1903-1990), British writer and social critic, was one of the most brilliant controversialists and media personalities of his generation. Gregory Wolfe's acclaimed biography draws on unpublished diaries, correspondence, interviews, and Muggeridge's prolific writings to chronicle the long and turbulent life of this legendary figure. This edition, which marks the centenary of Muggeridge's birth, makes Wolfe's Muggeridge available in quality paperback for the first time in North America.
Customer Reviews:
Biography through a personal lens..........2005-10-31
Gregory Wolfe is a buoyant and dexterous writer who obviously loved Malcolm Muggeridge. This biography is a very thorough, fair, even warts-and-all account of the life of the great British writer and television host. Unfortunately, it is also more than that. Wolfe spares little effort in gratuitously reaffirming what he believes Muggeridge's political and religious agenda to have been, and spoils what should have been a straightforward biography with frequent little plugs for American conservative political prejudices. The result is that Muggeridge -- a lifelong critic of institutional fundamentalism in all its guises -- emerges from Wolfe's embrace as a kind of born-again neo-con. Muggeridge was not the only 20th century young socialist sympathizer to have had his utopianism later crash on the rocks of Stalin's crimes, but his own accounts of his journey from material idealist to spiritually minded skeptic are certainly the most entertaining to date in the English language.
Wolfe, however, gives us few insights into Muggeridge's literary achievement, because he is too busy trying to position Muggeridge as some kind of raging bull against liberalism -- which, Wolfe editorializes, "opened the way for moral and social anarchy." Not only that, liberals also dismantled "the moral and cultural traditions of the West," Wolfe claims, and ushered in a "coarsening of attitude towards life," which featured (he says Muggeridge believed) terrible things like rising auto accident fatalities and factory farms for livestock. Leaving aside the fact that the beef industry or traffic laws have not been major targets of British or American conservatives, Wolfe's little jeremiads against liberalism fit uneasily into a biography of a man whose ethos was at odds with ossified, rigid belief systems of almost any kind. Muggeridge skirmished cheerfully with bombast wherever he found it, especially when it came from the pulpit or from politicians. He gave us, brilliantly, what all societies need: a skepticism administered with laughter. He always celebrated the simplest, least self-righteous of Christians, as well as the idea of Christendom, which surely to him meant a civilization of grace and acceptance, not polarization and intolerance -- which are often the hallmarks of how contemporary American conservatism is practiced. If Mr. Wolfe had written a book less intolerant of those whose political views he rejects, it would have more easily reflected the spirit of the man he celebrates.
A man did not shy from speaking out.......2003-08-08
A very strongly recommended addition to academic and community library collections, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography is a straightforward study of the life and impact of Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), a British writer and social critic at the center of controversy for his generation. In his creation of an absorbing portrait of a man did not shy from speaking out, biographer Gregory Wolfe has created an informed and definitive presentation on one of the most influential minds of the 20th Century.
A Man for All seasons.......2003-07-15
Malcolm Muggeridge is a literary icon of sorts, a man who called Orwell, Greene and Powell friends, whose image was displayed in Madame Tussaud's Waxworks Museum in London, who was a celebrity editor and tv personality in Britain for much of his life. Yet, it is the final journey of his life, toward spiritual growth and faith, that makes him a lasting figure on the literary scene, and one of the most celebrated Christian writers of the century. Gregory Wolfe's able biography takes us through his literary and spiritual journey, from the dark days of his infidelities and his contemplation of suicide to his saintly days as promoter of Mother Teresea and debater of Bill Buckley. Wolfe introduces us to a wonderful thinker and pundit, and does so without pulling punches, but I would also recommend Muggeridge's own Chronciles of Wasted Time. A shame he never completed the final part of this memoir, for it is a classic in the confessional genre.
What made Muggeridge tick?.......2000-12-14
What an incredible mind! Muggeridge's depth of vision is laid before us, his words powerfully used. It would be accurate to say that he "licked the earth" for most of his life and we are given convictingly honest insight into how this part of his life played out. The Lord had something else in mind and it was a long, slow process for Muggeridge to finally come to Christian faith. Bogged down a bit in the middle for my taste, but such a satisfactory read; couldn't put it down for long.
Reviews from the Publisher.......1997-11-25
Malcom Muggeridge (1903-1990), British writer and social critic, was one of the most brilliant controversialists and media personalities of his generation. This new biography draws on unpublished diaries, correspondence, interviews, and Muggeridge's prolific writings to chronicle the long and turbulent life of this legendary figure.
"Wolfe's book is bound to become the definitive biography of Muggeridge." Publisher's Weekly
"Wolfe has entered his subject's life in the most unobtrusive and salutary way, by adopting the attitude of a servant, so that the reader rides at the turbulent center of one of the most quixotic, troubled, and fascinating figures of twentieth-century Christendom. This biography is both an inspiration and a call to repentance to any who think they can exist as 'carnal' Christians. There's hardly anything Muggeridge didn't try until the Lord laid him low. Wolfe's work will be the standard for Muggeridge studies for years to come." Larry Wiowode, author of Poppa John
Customer Reviews:
"The author as others saw him.".......2004-03-28
Letters and recollections, anecdotes and interviews by those who knew the author of so many classic children's books and Christian writings. It's always interesting to learn about the real, fallible person who created such a lasting body of work, but what makes this book especially so is the editor's understanding of Lewis's time and culture. After reading it, I can't imagine comprehending the man without knowing about Oxford University politics - the Church of England to which he returned, after being earnestly atheist through the first years of his adulthood - or his close friends' reactions to his work.
At times this can be a dry read despite its fascinating subject, because its tone is more textbook than popular biography. It's nevertheless worth the wade, for anyone who enjoys learning about literary figures from someone else's primary source research.
--Nina M. Osier, author of ROUGH RIDER
Interesting reading for Lewis fans.......1998-03-02
Stephan Schofield did a great deal of work in garnering this collection of interviews, essays, and letters. Most of the chapters are memoirs by those who knew Lewis, either as pupils or as colleagues. Several intriguing anecdotes emerge from these pieces, and the book is balanced since the contributors are quite candid, giving Lewis both praise and censure. For those interested in C.S. Lewis, this is fun to read. Unfortunately, Bridge Publishers did a poor job putting the book together, with numerous typos, editing errors (such as combining letters from two people into one), and small type. Still, if you can look past these pecadillos, this is an enjoyable book.
Customer Reviews:
Discovering the Seeds of Faith.......2005-02-02
Muggeridge leads the reader through the lives of the child, the student, the teacher, the journalist, the soldier, the foreign correspondent--all on one man's journey of faith. The journey takes him to India, Egypt, Russia at the rise of Stalin and to America. Like so many stories of faith, he finds the words he learned by rote as a child and young man re-entering his life and thoughts over again at the many crossroads in his life until he reaches the point of knowing that the only central reality is God's incarnation into the human experience.
He reminds us, through his meeting of Mother Teresa, how absurd the lusts and passions for the material really are. Thoughtful, compelling, and inspiring, Muggeridge leads us to what we can become.
Too much name dropping, too little pilgrimaging.......2000-12-30
My title explains much of my reaction to this book. I felt like Muggeridge was simply trying to capitalize on his career and his association with Mother Teresa. He regularly tries to convince the reader that he has difficulties and temptations to overcome, but far more of the time in this book is spent on non-spiritual matters.
I should also say that Muggeridge has some fairly conservative views on issues, particularly abortion, and if you don't share them, he doesn't give any room for disagreement. While I acknowledge his rights to have those beliefs, I will exercise my right not to read his works further.
Average customer rating:
|
Ciano's Diary
Galeazzo Ciano
Manufacturer: Weidenfeld & Nicholson history
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
World War II
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
| Asia
| Eastern Front
| Europe
| General
| Hiroshima & Nagasaki
| Home Front
| Intelligence Operations
| Iwo Jima
| Naval
| Normandy
| Pearl Harbor
| Personal Narratives
| Stalingrad
| Western Front
| Women
General
| Essays
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1842124765 |
Book Description
Mussolini's Foreign Minister, and son in law, Count Ciano kept one of the most important and influential diaries to come out of World War II. These are those diaries. Covering events from 1939 until 1943, finishing days before his own execution by a firing squad for conspiring against his father in law. With an original introduction by Malcolm Muggeridge and a new foreword by Denis Mack Smith.
Book Description
This biography of Malcolm Muggeridge traces the varied life of one of the most brilliant and controversial men of the twentieth century. The author, Ian Hunter, was given full access to all of Muggeridge's unpublished material, letters, and diaries. The result is an objective, well-researched, and honest account that is sometimes at variance with Muggeridge's own recollection of events. Ian Hunter captures the humor, the intellect, the rawness of perception, the abandoned honesty of a man engaged in knowing himself, his world, and his God. Malcolm Muggeridge was not merely a "vendor of words," as he invariably described himself, but was also a celebrated author, broadcaster, lecturer, debater, traveller, journalist and television personality, a one-time ardent admirer of the Soviet system, a World War II intelligence agent, and a former agnostic turned committed Christian. To many people, however, Malcolm Muggeridge was admired above all for his superb use of the English language. It is to the credit of Ian Hunter that after reading this biography one has a clearer understanding of an extraordinary man. Dr. Ian Hunter is professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. His articles and reviews have appeared in many Canadian and American poublications. He edited two collections of Muggeridge's writings: Things Past and The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge; he also wrote a biography of Muggeridge's friend, Hesketh Pearson (Nothing to Repent: The Life of Heskerth Pearson).
Customer Reviews:
A man at right turns to convention. .......2005-11-02
The first reviewer has analyzed the strengths of this biography quite astutely: I also found Hunter's engaged, questioning, opinionated style appropriate to the man analyzed, and lively, besides. Muggeridge has lived on all six inhabited continents, "outed" Joseph Stalin, a German spy, and Mother Theresa for what they (respectively) were, interviewed Khrushchev and De Gaul, and found Jesus. This is not just the story of a man, it is the story of a century.
Muggeridge seemed born to coach, but took a lifetime to learn how to play. A moralist who freely cheated on his wife, a critic of power with no practical solution to its exercise, and used his own powers mostly for demolition, an ally in the Culture of Life who savored the thought of his own death, it would be easy to simply call Muggeridge a hypocrite and have done with it. But while Hunter reveals his subject's flaws, it is hard to dislike the man, overlook his enormous talent with words, or downplay the great good he did by seeking truth, and finding more and more of it. I think of his friend George Orwell as a "blind prophet." Muggeridge similarly was much more skilled at smelling out lies than at affirming truth. He seemed to take equal joy in "dissing" vulgar American culture, the queen, or frivolous college students, as Soviet mass murder or South African apartheid. It's nice to see an old bloke have so much fun. And usually, he was right.
One odd note: Hunter credits Muggeridge's friendship with bishop Alec Vidler for (probably) helping bring Muggeridge to faith in Christ. It is this same cleric whose modernist approach to the Gospels inspired C. S. Lewis' brilliant repost to critical New Testament scholarship, Fernseed and Elephants. (Which, as I show in my book, Why the Jesus Seminar can't find Jesus, and Grandma Marshall Could, continues to upturn the arguments of Jesus skeptics.) So whatever Vidler believed, he inspired two influential English Christians to good deeds in exactly opposite ways. Clever, these Anglican priests.
Malcom, We Hardly Knew Ye.......2005-01-25
The few biographies I've read seem to be of two sorts. The first sort retreads all the old ground of the life of what-his-name: blah blah blah, and then subjects the dry-as-dust "facts" to some sort of psychological analysis to liven them up. Absolutely to be avoided. In the second sort, the author engages the subject as Jacob wrestled with the angel: as does a real life, it seems not a finished product, but a work in progress. To this second class Ian Hunter's bio of Malcom Muggeridge happily belongs. The author is just as passionate, maverick, and opinionated as his subject. "A life" is an apt subtitle, for in this book Muggers, as his pals called him, comes alive.
Hunter makes the keen observation that MM is perceived differently in his homeland of England than on the other side of the Atlantic, and this book, originally published in Britain, rounds out a lot for the American reader. Here is the straight scoop on three occasions in the life of MM that most people only know in rumours: his repatriating of humor writer P.G. Wodehouse, who was then being called a traitor in the British press; his reporting of the deliberately induced famine in Russia under Stalin, for which he was called a liar in the American press (Walter Duranty reported in the New York Times that there was no famine, so eager was he that the Russian experiment succeed); and his so-called mocking of the Queen, for which he was kicked off the BBC and done down by his enemies in the British press (Hunter reveals he actually made a positive comment about the queen).
Hunter writes from both personal acquaintance with Muggeridge and an easy familiarity with his writings, so that it's not always easy to tell when his paraphrases of Malcom's ideas leave off and Hunter's take over. But while that's a flaw in the first type of biography, it's really a boon in the second type. How to contain the dynamo that is Malcom Muggeridge? Thankfully, Hunter doesn't try, instead letting his subject roam restlessly through the pages, the dynamo churning through the prose. This book seems the tip of the iceberg, and in that sense does what all good bios do: sends its readers to its subject, hungering for more.
Books:
- Son of Frankenstein : Universal Filmscripts Series Classic Horror Films Volume 3 (Autographed Edition)
- Spider-Man 3: I Am Venom (Spider-Man)
- Stargate SG-1: The Ultimate Visual Guide
- Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill : A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence
- Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Track
- The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden
- The America's Finest Companies Investment Plan 1998: Double Your Money Every Five Years
- The Big Book of Noir
- The Big Show: Inside ESPN's Sportscenter
- The Boer War
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Competency-Based Interviews: Master the Tough New Interview Style And Give Them the Answers That Wil
- The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids Favorite Meals
- Simon And Garfunkel's Greatest Hits
- Pricing Guide for Web Services : How to Make Money on the Information Data Highway
- The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth
- The Ruby Way, Second Edition: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming
- The Pacific Crest Trail: California
- Wiley Not-For-Profit Gaap 1998: Interpretation and Application of Generally Accepted Accounting Prin
- Saving Adam Smith: A Tale of Wealth, Transformation, and Virtue
- The Girlfriends Club: A Novel
A Third Testament: A Modern Pilgrim Explores the Spiritual Wanderings of Augustine, Blake, Pascal, Tolstoy, Bonhoeffer, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky
Conversion: The Spiritual Journey of a Twentieth Century Pilgrim
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light
Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography
The Gospel of Life: Evangelium Vitae
