Rating: 3/5
Review:
Good in parts
I found Confessions a real mixed bag of a book. A.N. Wilson writes extremely well, of course, and there are some nuggets of insight and description, but there is also a lot that I found frankly boring.
The opening of the book, describing Wilson’s first wife’s advancing dementia is gripping, moving and piercingly well described. However, after this short passage, there is a very lengthy section indeed about his grandfather and father, and their intimate connection to the Wedgwood factory and family. Even though this is about places very familiar to me from my infancy, I found it far too long and eventually very dull. Things pick up rather when Andrew goes to school; his descriptions of the schools he attended, his intellectual awakening and some of the abuses there are all fascinating (and sometimes quite horrifying), but again there are considerable longueurs, too. I found this throughout the book.
Wilson is in some ways frank about his own sometimes extremely bad behaviour, especially in relationships, but only to a very limited extent. There are a number of references to his marriage “unravelling,” but no real acknowledgement of his own contributions to it. It reminded me of the self-exculpatory passive used by Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes where, having shot someone, she refers to him having “become shot”. It all felt rather evasive and almost dishonest to me.
There are some good portraits of friends and acquaintances, but also rather a lot of uninteresting stuff. The same is true of Wilson’s experience as a university lecturer at Oxford and then as a journalist. The name-dropping is of a truly world-class standard, although I suppose those were the circles he moved in. When talking about his own intellectual activity and relationship with religion he can be fascinating and manages to stay this side of pretention most of the time – but I did mutter “Oh, for heaven’s sake” (I paraphrase) when told “I still read the New Testament in Greek every year,” for example.
I reached the end of the book (with some judicious skimming) sooner than expected because I hadn’t realised that the last 10% was index – and felt rather relieved. I had the sense of having waded through more mud than I’d have liked in order to retrieve a few gems. I can only give Confessions a very qualified recommendation.
(My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.)
The opening of the book, describing Wilson’s first wife’s advancing dementia is gripping, moving and piercingly well described. However, after this short passage, there is a very lengthy section indeed about his grandfather and father, and their intimate connection to the Wedgwood factory and family. Even though this is about places very familiar to me from my infancy, I found it far too long and eventually very dull. Things pick up rather when Andrew goes to school; his descriptions of the schools he attended, his intellectual awakening and some of the abuses there are all fascinating (and sometimes quite horrifying), but again there are considerable longueurs, too. I found this throughout the book.
Wilson is in some ways frank about his own sometimes extremely bad behaviour, especially in relationships, but only to a very limited extent. There are a number of references to his marriage “unravelling,” but no real acknowledgement of his own contributions to it. It reminded me of the self-exculpatory passive used by Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes where, having shot someone, she refers to him having “become shot”. It all felt rather evasive and almost dishonest to me.
There are some good portraits of friends and acquaintances, but also rather a lot of uninteresting stuff. The same is true of Wilson’s experience as a university lecturer at Oxford and then as a journalist. The name-dropping is of a truly world-class standard, although I suppose those were the circles he moved in. When talking about his own intellectual activity and relationship with religion he can be fascinating and manages to stay this side of pretention most of the time – but I did mutter “Oh, for heaven’s sake” (I paraphrase) when told “I still read the New Testament in Greek every year,” for example.
I reached the end of the book (with some judicious skimming) sooner than expected because I hadn’t realised that the last 10% was index – and felt rather relieved. I had the sense of having waded through more mud than I’d have liked in order to retrieve a few gems. I can only give Confessions a very qualified recommendation.
(My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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