Customer Reviews

Chronicles of Wasted Time

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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.

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.

It is almost sixteen years since the death of this great writer, broadcaster, actor, soldier-spy and latterly Christian apologist and his voice is greatly missed, particularly at this time with so many major and controversial issues dominating the news agenda. Because love him or loathe him, Muggeridge always had a unique, and often tangental, view to offer on the significant events of the day.
Without doubt, Chronicles was his greatest work and should be compulsory reading for anyone learning English literature, for it will be found a totally engrossing read, start to finish. Spanning the early part of the twentieth century, Muggeridge was a master in use of the English language and his love of writing comes out on every page, together with his wit and wisdom. The Malcolm Muggeridge Society is bringing more of his work back into print and I'd like to think that it will be read not by existing fans but by a new generation.

While I don't claim to have read everything in English, this is the best-written book I've ever read. I remember hoping not to pass on before I'd finished it. Five stars is not enough for this absolutely delightful book, or rather two books. It was originally published in two volumes, "The Green Stick" and "The Infernal Grove", both included here. This is the first edition to include the remnants of the barely-begun third volume, "The Right Eye" (the Chronicles were to have been a trilogy).

Thanks to the efforts of the Malcolm Muggeridge Society in London, here are all three (or two and a bit) books together. What's more, the introduction is by Ian Hunter, who penned his own riveting bio of MM, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life, as well as assembling short bits and shreds from hither and yon in The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge.

To my view, the Chronicles are the very best of MM. Were he to have some place in the literature of the last century, this is the book that would assure it. Not that he would want a place. He considered himself a journalist, not a writer, or as he loved to quote St. Augustine, "a vendor of words". However, as Ian Hunter reveals, he was not simply an observer but a player on the scene of the most tumultuous century in history. As biographer Richard Ingrams has noted, he seemed to know everyone and be everywhere.

In a sense, there was a third book, called Conversion, which appeared instead of The Right Eye. It's the only book he wrote after becoming a Roman Catholic in 1982, and appeared with various subtitles. It's not, as one might think, about becoming an RC, although it does cover that. Oddly enough it's written in the third person, and subject-wise takes up where his book and TV show, A Third Testament, left off, in chronicling his various inspirations. It's best read after the Chronicles, as he retreads some of the same ground, commenting and adding anecdotal reflections.

As much as one would long to read The Right Eye in its entirety, this is all we have. One imagines him reciting that third book somewhere to rollicking applause, for closing this volume one gets the sense that even after a long and prolific life he left us much too soon, and with music still in him.

I have only recently discovered Malcolm Muggeridge's writings, and wow! what a man, what an awesome writer! He can make you laugh, cry, and scream all in the same paragraph. I could not put this book down, even though at first it seemed way too long. Every page was crisp with details of a fascinating life! Truly an inspiring, unforgettable memoir.

Endearing portrait of an old crank, a devilish view of ruined idealism and fond memories. Thought provoking, yet faith upholding.

Loved it. Read it slowly, not in big bunches.

The singularly preeminent post classic autobiography I have read. Malcolm Muggeridge is a endearing soul who's penetrating wit pierces to the heart, many of the convenient illusions that accompany life. The era in which he lived was for many predominated by the dream of collectivism and brotherhood, equality and deliverance from class struggles and from the ugliness of market capitalism. Malcolm's idealism, is slowly smothered and crushed by developments in history that reveal, given our natures ,the impossibility of this dream ever becoming a reality. Malcolm shifts his paradigm from without to within, where the true struggle has always resided, and as he always knew it did. The result of Malcolm's endeavor is worth knowing and I recommended you buy his book and find out for yourself.

I've finally finished Chronicles of Wasted Time by Malcolm Muggeridge.

The autobiography consists of two previously published volumes, The Green Stick and The Infernal Grove, as well as the previously unpublished beginning of a third volume, The Right Eye. The writing is superb. Clean, clear, exhilarating. (Although I did notice more typographical errors in the second volume than in the first.) Muggeridge (1903-1990) often references historical works and personalities, which shouldn't be surprising given that he spent most of his working years as a journalist.

I was intrigued by how (apparently) easily he moved back and forth between journalism and working in the public sector.

One complaint: The chapters are too long, averaging roughly 70 pages each. I assume this is partly why I read the tome slowly.

The book was on my to-read list because it's on the Image Journal list.
[...]

This book is what I call "chewy" - not one to just breeze through in a day or two as you would a bestseller. There is a lot going on here. I think MM had a manic-depressive disorder, and that comes to light in his other autobiographical book (of his diaries) as well. Interesting to read about his
rocky journey through all the highs and lows, and how he finally finds serenity later in life.

Malcolm Muggeridge, in his autobiography Chronicles of Wasted Time, makes the following observation about D.H. Lawrence: "He was one of those men, tragic and gifted, who work out in themselves the conflicts and dilemmas of their time; who are themselves our own fever and pain" (66). We are not sure, reading Muggeridge's ambiguous assessment of Lawrence, whether he means this as a compliment, a jibe, or both. One thing, however, is certain: it is a description that matches Muggeridge's own life with ironic clarity. This double-edged, almost backhanded compliment is a shining example of the wit and life of this compelling Christian prophet.

Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist who lived from 1903 to 1990. He was raised in a staunchly socialist home, moved with his wife to Soviet Russia in the 1930s in order to be part of the great new world that Stalin was supposedly spearheading, but left disaffected. He served in the British Intelligence services during World War II, later became editor of Punch magazine, and even later, in his mid-sixties, converted to Christianity. In Chronicles of Wasted Time Muggeridge works out in his own body the conflicts and dilemmas of his era, providing a personal snapshot of the 20th century's struggles with socialism, with government, with sex, and with media. To all these he preaches a message of prophetic denunciation. Each thing, after all, is a promise of heaven on earth, and Muggeridge's message is imbued with authority because he has tried and experienced first-hand the best that the 20th century had to offer in terms of answers to the ills of man. "The really terrible thing about life," he observes, "is not that our dreams are unrealised but that they come true" (50). Having witnessed the great dreams of the 20th century, Muggeridge testifies that their realization was, far from the promised utopia, a horror. Rejecting, then, the false anesthetics of the 20th century, he asserts instead that the answer to the ills of humankind is the one given in the 1st century, God alone in Christ.

Chronicles of Wasted Time was originally two separate volumes. The Green Stick documents Muggeridge's early life and his journey out from the illusion of socialism. For a variety of reasons it is the stronger half of the book; Muggeridge inhabits a literary world there are many figures with whom the reader will be familiar (D.H. Lawrence, George Orwell, and others). Furthermore it has a special cohesion because it is the self-contained story of Muggeridge's ideological journey. The second volume, The Infernal Grove, covers Muggeridge's war years, but lacks the cohesion of the first volume and is, on the whole, a darker book. A third volume was planned but left unfinished, and might have framed the second volume differently (as the third act gives redemption to the dark second act in a play). Consequently, The Infernal Grove lacks some of the depth and energy of The Green Stick.

Still, Muggeridge's autobiography is a pleasure to read for a variety of reasons. His many anecdotes on important and famous personages are humorous, eye-opening, and insightful. His self-deprecating style is endearing. As a witness to numerous historical events his testimony is important. But above, perhaps, even these, it is his incisive commentary (offered in his uniquely Muggeridge-ian style) on the particular issues of the 20th century--issues that maintain their relevance today--that makes his book valuable reading. Throughout all of these runs a pervasive sense of the fallenness of mankind, especially as it is exhibited and magnified in media.

Consider the following passage, which is a brilliant example of Muggeridge's unique style, where he comments on his first forays into the movie theater:

"The reign of the camera had begun. I cannot pretend that I was aware of the implications of my protracted Saturday afternoon communings with shadows flickering across a screen, but it is certainly true that, increasingly, when I emerged, what was outside took on the character of the pictures I had been looking at, rather than the other way round. All the world in a picture palace." (69)

In these subtle sentences Muggeridge has done several things. First, he speaks of the 'reign' of the camera, which points to the increasing dominance he (accurately) perceives media will attain in our lives. Second, the idea of 'communings' evokes a religious aspect of the cinema--here we go to find our spiritual experiences, to find enlightenment for our world. Third, he notes the power of cinema to begin to edit our world, rather than our world interpreting cinema--identifying the chief danger of an escape from reality into the pipe-dream promised by a false reality. Those are Muggeridge's obvious points, but beneath them, by citing the "shadows flickering across the screen," he has colored his criticism with a reference to Plato's famous Cave, where chained intellects were bound to ignorance, their only knowledge attained through the projection of shadowy figures on a wall. In Plato's story, one figure is freed from the cave, enlightened by the sun, and returns to bring the news to those still in the cave. The new depth, then, of Muggeridge's criticism is that he asserts we have, in allowing the cinema to have its reign, capitulated to a stupefying of our intelligence. We have abdicated our enlightenment, choosing, in 20th century media, shadows over reality.

No doubt because of his profession, media, journalism, and socialism are linked ideas for Muggeridge, and they become his lens into human sinfulness, especially (in concert with his assessment of the cinema) our willingness to twist reality to our own desires. "People, after all," he writes, "believe lies, not because they are plausibly presented, but because they want to believe them. So, their credulity is unshakeable" (274). While living as a journalist in Soviet Russia he traveled on a train through the countryside, aware through his sources (and later through personal observation) of the mass starvation occurring outside the cities. However, against these realities, he noted that "These fellow passengers provided my first experience of the progressive elite from all over the world who attached themselves to the Soviet régime, resolved to believe anything they were told by its spokesmen" (212). Those who dared to be critical of the regime--even in Britain--were silenced. Muggeridge writes that "Even Animal Farm, one of the few undoubted works of genius of our time, was rejected by fourteen publishers on the ground that it was too hostile to the Soviet régime, before being accepted. One of the rejectors was T.S. Eliot on behalf of Faber & Faber" (272). The book is replete with examples such as this, many more terrifying in aspect. Despite this, throughout the book Muggeridge doesn't overstate his ironies; he merely presents them for the absurdities that they are. His ultimate assessment of the era was that a whole host of people,

"...all resolved, come what might, to believe anything, however preposterous, to overlook anything, however villainous, to approve anything, however obscurantist and brutally authoritarian, in order to be able to preserve intact the confident expectation that one of the most thorough-going, ruthless and bloody tyrannies ever to exist on earth could be relied on to champion human freedom, the brotherhood of man, and all the other good causes to which they had dedicated their lives." (275-6)

Hence, Muggeridge's distrust of humanity--of human reasoning, human spirituality, and human optimism--is based on his personal experience of human mendacity. The 20th century is a century of lies, willingly embraced.

"Learning from experience," Muggeridge writes, "means, in practice, learning from suffering; the only schoolmaster" (19). Muggeridge's life lesson, shared with us, learned through his own personal suffering, is that earthly justice, earthly efforts, and all the works of man are utter and unredeemable suffering apart from the grace of God. His voice, then, speaks to us from the 'inside' of the 20th century--not as someone who merely lived in his century, but as one who has both acted on the stage and looked behind the scenes. And the insider's view that he offers us--the personal appraisal and rejection of the siren calls of our world--is precisely the strength of Muggeridge's prose. If you will, he is a Christian cynic--not a pessimist, just someone vastly more realistic than everyone else and consequently suspicious of everything in the world that isn't God. He is a man who refused to be taken in by any ideology, any false promises (whether of marketing or propaganda), any movements or governments. Reading his autobiography one gets a clear sense of Muggeridge's awareness and insight into a fallible world and its desperate need for God. As a result it is Muggeridge's personal experiences, here on display and under self-criticism, that generate the potent perspective of the prophet; in the name of Christ he denounces all things for the sake of Christ. And if he is a grouchy prophet of doom, it is because he has seen the glory to which we are called and wants us to seek it, rather than settle for the cheap, distracting thrills of our time.

(One star less than five because of the lagging second volume.. but barely.)