A Cab at the Door & Midnight Oil (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IN our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth..." (more)
Key Phrases: leather trade, Christian Science, Divine Mind, Uncle Arthur (more...)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 431 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (July 12, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679601031
• ISBN-13: 978-0679601036
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,828,532 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars autodidact, out of chaos, April 19, 2001

By	Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

VS Pritchett has written a splendid two-volume autobiography, which covers his childhood through his initiation as a writer. It is beautifully written and hilariously funny in places.

His early life was rather chaotic, both as a Christian Scientist and because of the ups and downs of his father's business, which meant they were frequently poor and the the children farmed out to grandparents. What is remarkable is his rise, from voracious reader to first-rate literary talent. Blocked from admission to university because he was put on a "craft" track in the leather trade, he gave it up and went abroad, the next best thing to a degree. In Paris as a semi-bohemian, he started writing, which led to jobs and a career.

His descriptions are so marvelous that I have remembered some of them for over 20 years. While a child writing for public-library event, he said he wrote the words so that they would "burn into the table" (if memory serves!); the essay was so good that the teacher thought he was really a professional writer. Nothing spectacular, but a first-rate story of coming of age.

I recommend it for any aspiring writer who wants to feel that some order might emerge from his/her chaos of early hopes. ALso for the literarati, it is the emergence of an unusual mind.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cab @ The Door & Midnight Oil, Two Pleasures in One Volume, July 9, 2007

By	E. O Wren "edwren2" (Grageville, ID) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A wonderful single volume Modern Library edition of Pritchett's two volumes of memiors, Cab at the Door and Midnight Oil. Cab at the Door covers Pritchett's life from before birth to age 18. It is by turns: engaging, enlightening and laugh out loud funny. A good picture of post Victorian/Edwardian England. Pritchett's easy, self-depricating style keeps this poverty coming of age story from becoming another Mein Kampf (my struggle).

Midnight Oil is even better and was rightly called "A little Rolls Royce of a book." by Wilfred Sheed when it came out in 1972. The best and probably most realistic portrait of Paris in the 20's I've read. Very readable and important to anyone that wants to understand how a writer came to be. The pages fly by. I highly reccomend this Modern Library edition.

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