Shirer is known most for his famous book about the Third Reich, but reading other works of his is illuminating and satisfying just as much, and funny, this book about his early years is no exception! Of course, one thinks this is funny because one expects a level of writing suitable more to a youth of twenty something, and this is in all likelihood written later, but then again, one forgets being young is not necessarily equivalent of being unaware, and someone who grew so well could only have begun by awakening during those years he is writing about in this work.
So while one goes through a first part that does suit those early years and one's low expectations of such a youth, the second chapter zaps one awake and one begins to marvel at all the author has to tell.
He begins with his early years in Chicago, and a concise history of all that is worthy of mention about the town it then was, and there is much every which way one looks - and much one is usually not told in the usual descriptions of the history of the nation much less city, for example about the labour movements and the stiff opposition from the business and politics nexus that broke them. Then there are the various great minds he talks about, including his father, that influenced him, thinkers and authors, those early years.
The family shifted to Cedar Rapids when his father died, rather early, and he describes the new place and history thereof, along with histories of his ancestors and family, all very very interesting. And then in mid twenties post WWI he is in Paris, as described in the first part, and begins another very interesting part, what with the various writers and so forth he comes immediately into contact with, and life in Paris, and more.
The memoirs one would necessarily expect of course to become immediately far more interesting when the young man shifts to Paris, comes in contact with the great authors and others - artists, politicians, journalists, ballet divas and more - and so it does, right up to the end. It is a testimony to the author's general persona, his mind and spirit and awareness that it doesn't reduce to a catalogue of names, and that after finishing it on reflection one realises that the part prior to Paris was well balanced, not a boring prologue to the exciting bits.
The Europe theatre in this, straddled as it is between the two world wars and set mostly in Paris, London and Vienna, does remind one a good deal of the World's End series of Upton Sinclair. The sensibilities of the two works, perhaps the two authors, are far too alike in this, and one wonders if they were close in life too, or was it merely a similarity of mind and spirit of the two that shared a time frame in the world events along with interests that focus on the space very similar.
Very worth reading for anyone interested in the world events of that era, or in consciousness awakening, for that matter.
January 11, 2017.
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