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.