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'A rich, brave and rewarding book' -- The Times 'His story is both a tale of personal redemption and a reflection on changes in the way society treats its children' -- Choice 'This touching, and in places extremely funny memoir, shows how (Sutherland's) leap into literature was far from straightforward ... a memoir uncompromised by sentimentality ... Impressively honest' -- Independent on Sunday 'A rueful autobiography by the admired literary critic' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Hilarious and horrifying' -- Evening Standard 'A thoughtful and engaging biography' -- Morning Star
The Times
'An entertaining ride through post-war life, hard labour and poor food'
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Review: The Boy Who Loved Books - John Sutherland
The middle of the last century was evidently not a good time to be a child, such is the rash of books describing what one national bookseller now categorises on its shelves as "Tragic Childhoods". I have read a few of these, the determining factor in my choice being not the degree of tragedy displayed on the back cover of the books but whether I am actually interested to read about the author for other reasons. Having just read and enjoyed Sutherland's "How to Read a Novel", I decided to read The Boy Who Loved Books, partly because the title could equally have applied to me a good many years ago.
Fortunately, despite the hardship of Sutherland's early life, the label "tragic childhood" does not apply to this autobiography. This is mainly because Sutherland does not blame anyone for what happened to him, nor does he like others explain later tragic years (there were none) to the lingering effects of his undoubtedly difficult childhood. In fact, the book is humorous and amusing, and more in the style of V S Pritchett than Dave Feltzer. This book will not make you shudder at painstakingly described cruelty and abuse.
Sutherland was brought up mainly in Colchester with periods of time in Leith and London, but the setting is mainly Essex, a rural county where even the Colchester had more of the countryside than the city about it. Poverty was Sutherland's lot for a great part of his early life, but in later years, after his mother's relationship with a wealthy Argentinian the money flowed a little easier, with weekly "ten bob notes" appearing through his teenage years.
There are many interesting sections of this book, not least the period Sutherland spent in an Edinburgh tenement, his time in National Service in Aldershot and later in Germany, and his subsequent descriptions of life at Leicester University which at that time had a poor reputation not entirely consistent with its actual excellent academic life.
I enjoyed the book. It is "a good read" and has a generally cheerful feel to it. Sutherland seems to be quite content overall with how his life has run its course, and the book is a reflective and gentle look back on times which were undoubtedly difficult to live through.
The middle of the last century was evidently not a good time to be a child, such is the rash of books describing what one national bookseller now categorises on its shelves as "Tragic Childhoods". I have read a few of these, the determining factor in my choice being not the degree of tragedy displayed on the back cover of the books but whether I am actually interested to read about the author for other reasons. Having just read and enjoyed Sutherland's "How to Read a Novel", I decided to read The Boy Who Loved Books, partly because the title could equally have applied to me a good many years ago.
Fortunately, despite the hardship of Sutherland's early life, the label "tragic childhood" does not apply to this autobiography. This is mainly because Sutherland does not blame anyone for what happened to him, nor does he like others explain later tragic years (there were none) to the lingering effects of his undoubtedly difficult childhood. In fact, the book is humorous and amusing, and more in the style of V S Pritchett than Dave Feltzer. This book will not make you shudder at painstakingly described cruelty and abuse.
Sutherland was brought up mainly in Colchester with periods of time in Leith and London, but the setting is mainly Essex, a rural county where even the Colchester had more of the countryside than the city about it. Poverty was Sutherland's lot for a great part of his early life, but in later years, after his mother's relationship with a wealthy Argentinian the money flowed a little easier, with weekly "ten bob notes" appearing through his teenage years.
There are many interesting sections of this book, not least the period Sutherland spent in an Edinburgh tenement, his time in National Service in Aldershot and later in Germany, and his subsequent descriptions of life at Leicester University which at that time had a poor reputation not entirely consistent with its actual excellent academic life.
I enjoyed the book. It is "a good read" and has a generally cheerful feel to it. Sutherland seems to be quite content overall with how his life has run its course, and the book is a reflective and gentle look back on times which were undoubtedly difficult to live through.
Format:Hardcover
This is an elegantly written, witty and engaging autobiography, a riposte to the deplorable vogue for 'Tragic Life Stories', (a genre I'd personally like to see swept off the shelves of W.H.Smith tomorrow and consigned to outer darkness!) What makes 'The Boy Who Loved Books' so different from those self-regarding, self-indulgent and possibly unreliable 'Misery Memoirs' is Professor Sutherland's cool objectivity and lack of self-pity, together with flashes of humour and his forgiveness for those who, in lesser hands, could be blamed for abandonment and carelessness. There's lots to enjoy here; one of my favourite sections describes the teaching methods of the inspirational but eccentric Monica Jones (famously an innamorata of Philip Larkin, with whom I suspect Professor Sutherland feels a certain affinity i.e also having endured an "unspent" childhood) at Leicester University, a place that triumphs over its apparent dourness. This book is highly recommended to the discerning, intelligent reader.
4 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I thought this was a most distasteful book. Well-written, yes. We'd expect no less from a professor of English at UCL. But I felt dirty after I'd read it; partly because Sutherland himself comes across as an unpleasant person and partly because his family seems almost without a redeeming feature among them. His mother in particular is depicted as an outstandingly selfish and neglectful mother at best and a good-time girl, to put it delicately, at worst. He himself seems to have incredibly lucky in his professional career, going from poor A-levels to a university that wasn't exactly distinguished, but from there straight to a lectureship at Edinburgh University. And even then he has the nerve to be unpleasant about Scotland in general ("the fairest road a Scotsman ever sees", ie the one to England, is mentioned more than once) and Edinburgh in particular. He may have escaped his background in material and professional terms, but in terms of what sort of person he is he seems not to have moved far from his not-very-nice family. I can't see why he felt the need to write it, unless he wanted revenge on his mother. Not recommended.
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