The message of the book is summed up in its penultimate sentence: “I have finally learned that admitting to being wrong is infinitely more important than using skills and tricks and weapons and tools to look ‘right’, and that there is no point in having a mind if you can’t change it.” It’s an important message; what that sentence doesn’t convey, though, is what a remarkably honest and courageous book this is. O’Brien talks openly about some of the times he has been, in his words, “horribly wrong” either about an idea or about the way in which he has treated someone. It makes quite painful reading sometimes; it must have been very difficult to write and I think he deserves great credit for what he has done.
He has a lot to say about the way in which early experiences at school in particular gave him a mindset of always expecting attack and how he built a set of verbal tools to fend off attacks and to “win,” rather than to really listen to and empathise with what people with different life experiences may be saying to him. It took a major family crisis for him to realise that these tools did not make him a good father or husband in these circumstances and, again to his credit, he sought counselling even though he was mightily sceptical and cynical about the whole process. His description of how this affected him and the subsequent re-evaluation of much of how he behaves toward people is readable, fascinating and moving in places. Much of what he says applies to an awful lot of us (especially men, I would suggest) and is a salutary read.
I can recommend How Not To Be Wrong as an engrossing, thoughtful and thoroughly illuminating read. One of my best books of the year so far.
(My thanks to Random House, WH Allen for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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