Customer Reviews

Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography

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Malcom Muggeridge (1903-1990), British writer and social critic, was one of the most brilliant controversialists and media personalities of his generation. This new biography draws on unpublished diaries, correspondence, interviews, and Muggeridge's prolific writings to chronicle the long and turbulent life of this legendary figure.

"Wolfe's book is bound to become the definitive biography of Muggeridge." Publisher's Weekly

"Wolfe has entered his subject's life in the most unobtrusive and salutary way, by adopting the attitude of a servant, so that the reader rides at the turbulent center of one of the most quixotic, troubled, and fascinating figures of twentieth-century Christendom. This biography is both an inspiration and a call to repentance to any who think they can exist as 'carnal' Christians. There's hardly anything Muggeridge didn't try until the Lord laid him low. Wolfe's work will be the standard for Muggeridge studies for years to come." Larry Wiowode, author of Poppa John

Malcolm Muggeridge is a literary icon of sorts, a man who called Orwell, Greene and Powell friends, whose image was displayed in Madame Tussaud's Waxworks Museum in London, who was a celebrity editor and tv personality in Britain for much of his life. Yet, it is the final journey of his life, toward spiritual growth and faith, that makes him a lasting figure on the literary scene, and one of the most celebrated Christian writers of the century. Gregory Wolfe's able biography takes us through his literary and spiritual journey, from the dark days of his infidelities and his contemplation of suicide to his saintly days as promoter of Mother Teresea and debater of Bill Buckley. Wolfe introduces us to a wonderful thinker and pundit, and does so without pulling punches, but I would also recommend Muggeridge's own Chronciles of Wasted Time. A shame he never completed the final part of this memoir, for it is a classic in the confessional genre.

A very strongly recommended addition to academic and community library collections, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography is a straightforward study of the life and impact of Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), a British writer and social critic at the center of controversy for his generation. In his creation of an absorbing portrait of a man did not shy from speaking out, biographer Gregory Wolfe has created an informed and definitive presentation on one of the most influential minds of the 20th Century.

Gregory Wolfe is a buoyant and dexterous writer who obviously loved Malcolm Muggeridge. This biography is a very thorough, fair, even warts-and-all account of the life of the great British writer and television host. Unfortunately, it is also more than that. Wolfe spares little effort in gratuitously reaffirming what he believes Muggeridge's political and religious agenda to have been, and spoils what should have been a straightforward biography with frequent little plugs for American conservative political prejudices. The result is that Muggeridge -- a lifelong critic of institutional fundamentalism in all its guises -- emerges from Wolfe's embrace as a kind of born-again neo-con. Muggeridge was not the only 20th century young socialist sympathizer to have had his utopianism later crash on the rocks of Stalin's crimes, but his own accounts of his journey from material idealist to spiritually minded skeptic are certainly the most entertaining to date in the English language.

Wolfe, however, gives us few insights into Muggeridge's literary achievement, because he is too busy trying to position Muggeridge as some kind of raging bull against liberalism -- which, Wolfe editorializes, "opened the way for moral and social anarchy." Not only that, liberals also dismantled "the moral and cultural traditions of the West," Wolfe claims, and ushered in a "coarsening of attitude towards life," which featured (he says Muggeridge believed) terrible things like rising auto accident fatalities and factory farms for livestock. Leaving aside the fact that the beef industry or traffic laws have not been major targets of British or American conservatives, Wolfe's little jeremiads against liberalism fit uneasily into a biography of a man whose ethos was at odds with ossified, rigid belief systems of almost any kind. Muggeridge skirmished cheerfully with bombast wherever he found it, especially when it came from the pulpit or from politicians. He gave us, brilliantly, what all societies need: a skepticism administered with laughter. He always celebrated the simplest, least self-righteous of Christians, as well as the idea of Christendom, which surely to him meant a civilization of grace and acceptance, not polarization and intolerance -- which are often the hallmarks of how contemporary American conservatism is practiced. If Mr. Wolfe had written a book less intolerant of those whose political views he rejects, it would have more easily reflected the spirit of the man he celebrates.

What an incredible mind! Muggeridge's depth of vision is laid before us, his words powerfully used. It would be accurate to say that he "licked the earth" for most of his life and we are given convictingly honest insight into how this part of his life played out. The Lord had something else in mind and it was a long, slow process for Muggeridge to finally come to Christian faith. Bogged down a bit in the middle for my taste, but such a satisfactory read; couldn't put it down for long.