The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
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Average rating3.5
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers, a book that expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality. “Shields is a sharp-eyed, self-deprecating, at times hilarious writer.” —The Wall Street Journal Mesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being. The Thing About Life provokes us to contemplate the brevity and radiance of our own sojourn on earth and challenges us to rearrange our thinking in crucial and unexpected ways.
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I'm not sure what the author wanted this book to be. Sure, it's filled with fascinating facts and statistics following life from early childhood leading up until death. There are even more than a few interesting quotes from well-known people and then people I've never heard of (not that I am an authority on well-known people by any means). Some of the anecdotes and stories of the author and his father's past were marginally entertaining as well. Nonetheless, the link between all of these parallels never seemed to really connect - the author was somewhat disjointed in writing the novel and it felt as if he was simply cramming his exhaustive research into chapters at times solely to demonstrate his hard efforts.
He and I most certainly do not see eye to eye as to what the ultimate purpose of life is, Shields being a staunch atheist following in his “devout atheist” father's footsteps and me being a Christian. I'm sure this attributes partly to why I had to force myself to finish this book.
I would have liked the author to zero in closer on the relationship with his dad - perhaps the more positive aspects of their relationship to balance out the overly negative tones of jealousy and frustration that he seems to be more ailing than his 97 year old father. Or if he could have picked another topic to zero in closer on - Malcolm Gladwell comes to mind as someone who intertwined facts, figures and personal anecdotes much more competently.
Ultimately, to discover the central premise of the novel, one does not have to look any further than the title to uncover the answer.
The point of the novel is essentially provided for the reader in the title. So, read no further than that and you should be set.
When people ask me, “What do people mean when they talk about personal essay?” I can do no better than refer them to this book.
David Shields combines info about the gradual decline and decay of the body with stories about his own life at fifty-one and stories about the life of his father, now 97.
Absolutely mesmerizing. I loved this book.
