The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
This book. My god. I have been struggling and whinging through this for weeks. Ben Franklin is *aggravating*. I think perhaps what I wanted was a biography rather than an autobiography. But you know, I thought it would be better in his own words. But the list of what he considered important in his life probably doesn't match up with what I would. As it is, it was like reading Russell Brand - getting to know this person from the inside did not make me like him any better. It's like having an intimate insight to someone's thoughts of themselves and instead of feeling empathy and compassion really wanting to shiv a bitch.Which would normally mean you just skim read it and write a scathing review and call it done. But this guy is smart, and has done extraordinary things. And every so often there is a part of it that is revelatory. Sometimes he stops reciting his list of people who praised him and who did him wrong and who owes him money and actually says something you can do something with. He created the firefighting department. He invented a better kind of streetlamp and got them installed. He persuades others to like him better by getting them to do him a favour, people liking people they have helped better than people who have helped them.His arrogance is provoking. He's also the original sock puppet, using a fake account to put up amazon reviews of his own books. He wrote an Almanac for 25 years as Poor Richard, and in this essay about it he claims he was walking along and heard an old man quoting prodigiously from his own works (which are dismissed by the critics but all the people who buy them love them and give them five star reviews, ignore all these one stars you see here on amazon it's a conspiracy). So this essay goes on where he regurgitates his trite quotes on industriousness and frugality that he acknowledges 90% of which he just borrowed from other people, and then says that everyone ignores him but he takes his own advice because it's awesome and signs off (as Richard).This habit of taking on other personas as suits him has been his modus operandi since he was 16. The person who put the book together says 'isn't it astonishing that he could write as a 40 year old widow when he was only 16? How novel and inventive!' Right. He assumes fake authority when he has something to say but realizes he has no experience of the actual fecking conditions to offer but he just can't shut his damn mouth. He also wrote as the King of Prussia. Just, you know, whatever lies you need to tell to look yourself in the eye as a righteous man. If there's manipulation to be done, whatever strengthens your position is fair.He was also the 1700's Kanye West in terms of tooting his own horn, there's an essay at the back justifying it. And the reasoning is even fairly sound - that people desire praise, and want to have their good works and efforts recognized. But "Being forbid to praise themselves, they learn instead of it to censure others, which is only a roundabout way of praising themselves; for condemning the conduct of another, in any particular, amounts to as much as saying: I am so honest, or wise, or good, or prudent, that I could not do or approve of such an action. This fondness for ourselves, rather than malevolence to others, I take to be the general source of censure and backbiting; and I wish men had not been taught to dam up their natural currents, to the overflowing and damage of their neighbours' grounds." (pp247)So you go along reading this book really struggling to find anything worthwhile and then in a few short sentences amid the drivel he captures something fascinating. Which makes you keep going.Also he Punctuates all of his Writings with mid-sentence Capital Letters and italics for emphasis which makes it feel like you've been reading much longer than you have. Keep plowing. There are things in here that make it worth the effort. Just on the whole, I'm glad to be done and have no intentions of coming back.
I have a love/hate relationship with one of my book clubs. I love to hate the books they choose. And this one I was determined to hate. Funny thing though, I can't hate this book. In the age of self aggrandizing ghost-written puff-piece memoirs, this was refreshingly humble. Which is ironic because Ben Franklin kind of seems full of himself. Of course, it ends around 1757 when he was a merely middle aged and well before many of the historical juicy bits really happen. The phrasing and vocabulary clearly point to the fact that this isn't anything modern, yet it wasn't oppressively formal. I confess to having read little to no English literature of the period, so I can't honestly make a comparison. I can say that Ben Franklin's writing was decidedly unfancy, and I would bet a nickel that he didn't have an editor.It's worth pondering whether he intended to complete this, and what it might have become of it if he did (set aside the conundrum that one can not truly complete one's autobiography). Looking at the timeline, he started writing in 1771, after the Boston Massacre but well before the first Continental Congress. It seemed that he kind of got busy with other things because he didn't pick it back up until 1784. You have to admit, there is a bit of irony in the fact that his autobiography writing was interrupted by the season of his life for which he is most notorious. Personally, I am happy that it didn't cover the American Revolution as that period is well documented and it would have tripled the length of the book. He was a terribly practicable person, a trait that clearly served him well in politics and his diplomatic career. In demonstrating that all politics are local, he spent several pages on how he garnered support for paving the streets of Boston. What I found interesting about this was how he thought it was important to discuss the drainage and nuances of gutter design. Even though is is primarily thought of as a politician, he can't seem to keep his inner engineer at bay. Combine the scientific pursuits with his dabbling in poetry, philosophy and you have a true renaissance man. You did get some glimpses into his the events that he deemed important, and there were several tidbits that I found interesting:* He rebellious inclinations may have started when working for his brother* Having lost a son to small pox, Ben Franklin was pro-vax. He urged parents to get their children vaccinated!* Ben Franklin thought that women would benefit more from learning basic bookkeeping skills than dance or music. Maybe he was a proto-feminist.* Ben Franklin would have probably been a big open source advocate. He never bothered to patent his now famous Franklin stove and he couldn't be bothered to pursue legal matters over those who stole the design and patented it. He was just happy that people benefited from it.To be sure, there were plenty of booorrrrrriiinnnnggg passages between the interesting bits. There were times when I thought, why the hell is he prattling on about a Reverend Whitefield and how traveling preachers are better because they can preach the same sermon over and over and with such repetition comes practice and improvement. I'm sure that's true, but if it was important to your life Mr. Franklin, I was too bored to notice.
What do You think about The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin (2004)?
Dr. Benjamin Franklin is the embodiment of Thomas Edison’s “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” He came from a poor family. His sensible father was of good character. Dr. Franklin was a deist. What God has given man, he purposefully, methodically, and continually used to improve himself. A self-driven independent thinker, he endeavored to improve, not only mentally and financially, but morally. He did it for his own sake, and the fruits became the glory of mankind. Dr. Franklin resolved to practice virtues every moment. He said he was not so successful in some, e.g. Order, but his ambitious efforts did him well. Some in the list, e.g. humility, were purposed to conquer his natural inclinations. It is clear from his depictions of his practice of humility that he did not mean self-abasement nor self-negation – he practiced diplomacy. He said about humility: “I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal about the appearance of it… In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it perhaps, often in this history; for even if I conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should be probably proud of my humility.” A benevolent man of great honor, Dr. Franklin had no mean bone in his body. He used reason and persuasion to advance his convictions. His integrity earned the respect and trust of his fellowmen. It is logical that he could not subdue his pride – because, as Ayn Rand said, “pride is the sum of all virtues” (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pri...). Dr. Franklin earned the virtue of pride. He depicted errors that he regretted. He had the misfortune of losing a four-year-old son to smallpox. I found page 63 very interesting. I dearly enjoyed reading Dr. Franklin’s words. I laughed heartily at this part: a great gun is certainly a fire engine.Dr. Benjamin Franklin had an exemplary, glorious life.
—Ilyn Ross
The first half was terrific, and the second half fell (for the most part) flat for me. I think it's because Franklin started writing to his son about his life and wound up being persuaded to continue the book as an autobiography for public consumption. Unfortunately, that sucked all the life out of it. If you're a fan of Ben, definitely read it. I loved the first half. The second half, for me, became too bogged down in military discussions (and he died prior to covering the Revolutionary War), which were boring for me. I had hoped he'd write mostly about his inventions, whereas he actually wrote more about his work with the government and military. *snore*
—Laura
Benjamin Franklin invented the American Fire Department, wood stoves, and the American system of government. You would think, then, that he'd invent some way of writing an autobiography that wasn't boring as hell. But no. Franklin loves his books, and he also loves self-improvement (the best parts of this are his bizarre charts where he rates himself on a 13-point scale of morality). But despite all of his attention to rhetoric this book does not, in my opinion, rise to the occasion of chronicling what by all accounts is a remarkable life. At one point he remarks that books with scenes and dialogue are more pleasurable to read - it's strange that someone so bent on self-improvement did not then think to incorporate such literary devices into his own writing. Like many male autobiographers (from St. Augustine to modern day politicians), early education, mundane philosophies on life in general, and braggadocio about professional accomplishments are given much space, while almost no time is devoted to the truly personal. Love affairs, marriage, children, death of loved ones, dramatic changes in personal beliefs - these are given little or no consideration. Autobiographies like these always leave me wishing the wife had written her side of the story.
—Jessica
