Chronicles of Wasted Time: An Autobiography

Rating:
Summary: Fabulously Written Autobiography - Funny, Spiritual
Review: For those who don't know, Muggeridge was a British journalist - editor of Punch, television journalist, etc. He was raised among some of the most "forward thinking" (an ironic phrase) socialist minded, trendy (naturist, vegetarian, etc.) people in London - very much a Fabian set. In his 30s, after he had been a policeman in India and a journalist in the U.S.S.R., he underwent an awakening to the fraud in much of the "progressive thinking" with which he had been inculcated and by which was completely adopted by all his right-thinking journalistic and political circles. He underwent a religious conversion to a high Anglican church (I think - or is it Catholic?) belief - it was later he who publicized Mother Theresa to the world. He is quite moving in describing his religious beliefs and is among the finest prose writers I've ever read - shockingly out of synch with secular modern ideas, and truly an original. He's terribly funny in his tales of the absurdity of Emperor without Clothes leaders and thinkers of the 20th century - particularly those who believe that collective policies by governments can improve mankind. He is as humorously cynical about man and his pathetic attempts to "improve himself" as anyone you'll ever read. He is also truly a fantastic prose writer - these two successive volumes in one are beautifully written and moving.

Rating:
Summary: An fascinating and incisive autobiography
Review: This book is wonderful. Editor of Punch, a member of British intelligence during the 2nd World War, a correspondent in Russia under Stalin for the Manchester Guardian, the man who introduced the world to Mother Teresa - Muggeridge was a fascinating and many-faceted man. He writes with an insight into the value of that which is eternal as only a man at the end of his time can.