The AUTOBIOGRAPHY of Thomas Jefferson

au·to·bi·og·ra·phy

ˌôdəbīˈäɡrəfē/

noun

an account of a person's life written by that person.

I can't believe I finished this book. I can't believe I finished this book after Books and Beer Club discussed this. (Then again, I had only 14 out of the 108 painful pages of this book on the Kindle app on my iPad.)

The way I view the genre of autobiography, this is not an autobiography. This was not an account of Thomas Jefferson's life at all. It's more a political rambling of the formation of our country. (And of the French Revolution - which Jeffersons thinks was modeled after our own Revolution.) Based on that expectation, reading this has been a major disappointment. I think in the entire book there were about 4 or 5 brief, personal revelations.

Another nitpick-y thing that bothered me was that "it's" was used as the possessive. I imagine that was how it was used back then, not yet meaning "it is."

This was probably one of the most difficult books I've ever read. It was rambling, wordy (including lots of words I needed to look up) and descriptive in a way that added nothing to "the story." Oh, wait. There was no story. At Books and Beer Club, we thought about the fact that perhaps this was really more of a diary - but written after the fact based on Jefferson's memory at the time he wrote it.

On Goodreads, I did give the book 2-stars rather than 1 simply because many of the facts in this missive were interesting and informing.

• During Jefferson's time as part of the legislature from 1769 until 1776, he made one effort towards the emancipation of slaves. Interesting, right, considering his relationship with Sally Hemmings.
• "That the people of the middle colonies (Maryland, Delaware, Pennslva (sic), the Jerseys & N. York were not yet ripe for bidding adieu to the British connection." Hmm, was there more than one Jersey? Plus, I always thought people from New York and New Jersey were so progressive. Apparently that's a recent thing.
• "That it was one of the utmost consequence to bring the parties together, as should we sever from each other, either no foreign power will ally with us at all, or the different states will form different alliances, and thus increase the horrors of those scenes of civil war and bloodshed which in such a state of separation & independence would render us a miserable people." I think Thomas Jefferson would be appalled if he saw what a divided country we are today.
• "I shall recur again to this subject towards the close of my story, if I should have life and resolution enough to reach that term, for I am already tired of talking about myself." I guess Tom found this a difficult read as well.
• Thomas Jefferson was in favor of one 7-year term for presidents. Others wished for an 8-year term, with the option to kick the fellow out of office at the mid-term. Even back then, term limits was an issue to contend with. They were revolting against a monarchy and didn't want to end up with a lifelong ruler.
• "Were not this great country already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority.... It is this partition of cares, descending fin gradation from general to particular, that the mass of human affairs may be best managed for the good and prosperity of all." States rights versus the rights of the Federal government.

I was able to come up with a few other interesting facts during our book club discussion that I can't remember now. Our discussion lasted longer than our leader thought it would after she heard that no one really liked the book. Just one person didn't read the book and of the others that attended, only one gave it a sideways thumb. Otherwise, it was two thumbs down.

True Confessions

About a month ago, I was pretty sick. Sick enough to wind up in the emergency room for a few hours. And sick enough to spend a few days in bed. And lots of nights going to bed super early. During that time, I had very little desire to read. Or watch TV. Or do anything. I'm still trying to come back from that period. So much in my life was put aside as I focused on getting myself to feel better. And now I have so much to catch up on. In my life, in my reading, and in my blogging.

As a reader, I'm completely overwhelmed right now. It was the week or so where I didn't read at all. It's the juggling of books coming in from the library at the same time.  It's reading for two book clubs but still wanting to read so many other books. It's the feeling that my "to be read" list keeps growing and growing and growing. It's my participation in a (walking) step challenge that has me spending so much more time every day walking instead of doing something else... which then takes up time I'd normally be reading.

It's happened before, it will happen again. Please hang in with me.

Right now, I'm reading Outlander #7, An Echo in the Bone. I'm reading The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson (which is pretty dry) for Books & Beer Club. I lost track of what e-book came in from some library - and expired - before I got to even glance at it. 

Interestingly enough, the Outlander novel and the Thomas Jefferson autobiography deal with the same time period, which I'm hearing about from two different points of view. (I had no idea that New York was the last holdout for independence of the 13 colonies in 1776. Who knew? New Jersey wasn't too far behind.)

I apologize for not posting more regularly so far in 2017... but when I'm not reading, it's often just easier to keep quiet.

Stay tuned...

A tribute to Pat Conroy

One of the members of my community book club had a great idea when we were trying to decide what book to read next. As a tribute to Pat Conroy who died several years ago, why didn't we read a Pat Conroy novel? She suggested Beach Music. Another member had another idea. Why doesn't each person read the Pat Conroy book of his or her choice? It certainly makes it easier for each of us to get a book since most of us rely on the library for getting the books we read.

I looked at the list of books that Pat Conroy wrote. I was pretty sure I didn't want to reread a book I've already read. There are still several that I haven't read but as an avid reader, the title My Reading Life jumped out at me. I figured I'd love to learn about what the reading life of a famous author was like.

(Here's my somewhat embarrassing Pat Conroy confession. My first Pat Conroy book was Beach Music. Next came Prince of Tides. I was positive that only a woman could feel deeply enough to pen these books. It wasn't until I read My Losing Season about 15 years ago that I realized that Pat Conroy was, in fact, a man.)

I really enjoyed this book a lot, learned a lot more about Pat Conroy than I already knew. And I started to think of myself as a reader... and as a wannabe writer. Yes, I know that everyone else thinks of me as a reader. But sometimes I feel like I don't read seriously enough... or enough pages... or enough titles. This book made me realize that everyone else is right about me.

Pat Conroy became a reader because he had a mother who was a reader. She read to make up for the fact that she wasn't well (school) educated. Her reading life became his early reading life. She, and later he, collected high school and college reading lists and read all the books on all the lists. Pat Conroy appeared to be as much a reader as he was a writer. He said he read nearly 200 pages a day - yes - a day - for all of his adulthood! That's a lot of pages.

This was a memoir of the complete Pat Conroy, not just the reader. It includes his writing life and lots of stories from his early family life and his adult life. If you are a fan of Pat Conroy, I'd highly recommend reading this book in addition to all the "famous" Pat Conroy books.