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I have heard that this was an important, well-written and interesting autobiography. I don’t recall where I heard it, but I made a note and it stuck in my head. So I found the audiobook and gave it a try.

What I learned was a more detailed version of what I knew: Benjamin Franklin was an interesting, hard-working, thoughtful man who helped shape our nation’s history. He was an indentured servant, a runaway, a businessman, an entrepreneur, a diplomat, a politician, an inventor, an author, a militiaman, a scholar and a philosopher, and a father. He invented many items, large and small, that improved the everyday life of people in his time, showing an intelligence and curiosity about how things work that I admire. He was also instrumental in beginning both a school (which became both the University of Pennsylvania, and a free school for poor kids) and a public hospital in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia. He did a lot of good things and had some interesting ideas. He was a moralist, and wrote tracts in which he espoused a “right way” of living.

The style of his autobiography is unfortunately stiff and pompous, though. I think that perhaps the narration of my Mission Audio edition didn’t help. The language in which this book was written is necessarily dated and sounds odd to the modern ear; but if today’s actors can make Shakespeare palatable, for gosh sake, you’d think they could have found a narrator who would bring Franklin to life, too. Instead they went with a sort of whuffling, sedate, staid voice that emphasized not this senior statesman’s timeless wisdom and accessibility – which I think might be there, hidden in the text – but the distance from which he speaks. The long pauses and bombastic tone went a long way towards ruining this experience for me.

I didn’t enjoy this autobiography at all, which was a disappointment. Actually I’m not quite sure why I finished it (Husband asked, and I couldn’t answer); maybe I had that much faith in the long-lost recommendation, or maybe I was just mesmerized by the monotonous narration… I didn’t even get the consolation of learning new bits about Franklin. I came away with the same vague notion of who he was and what his legacy was that I’d started with. For educational purposes, I actually got more out of the “timeline of his life” appended at the end than I did out of the bulk of the book. I feel that the autobiography itself was probably flawed, in that it leans towards anecdotes of little consequence, moralizing, and self-congratulations. But the narration was the final straw. Unfortunately I cannot recommend this book; and if you do decide to seek it out (in which case, let me know if it goes any better for you!), for the love of Dog, avoid the Mission Audio version.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: audio, biography, classics, history, nonfiction |