Always the Young Strangers

This is the autobiography of Carl Sandburg. He tells of growing up, the child of Swedish immigrants, in Galesburg, Illinois, on through the time he decided to set his autobiography onto paper. His unique language, made famous in his "Chicago Poems," makes the story of his life delightful to read. ( )

2256 Always the Young Strangers, by Carl Sandburg (read 16 Dec 1989) Last summer we stopped in Galesburg, Ill., and visited the house where Carl Sandburg was born on Jan 6, 1878. This is his story of his first 21 years, spent mostly in Galesburg. He ends this book with his decision, at age 21, to go to Lombard College in Galesburg--never having gone to high school. This book would be of tremendous interest to Swedes and people in Galesburg, but I found about the middle of the book it dragged some. He had a hard- working childhood and did some bumming when he was about 19 and when he was 20 he was in the Spanish-American War, though he was only in the Army five months. In his youth he learned Gray's Elegy by heart (which I appreciate since I also did, and still know it) and also a poem he does not name but quotes: Mortality, by William Knox, Abraham Lincoln's favorite poem (which I also memorized). ( )

Beautifully crafted prose. I think this is one of the finest autobiographies of the 20th century. Too bad Sandburg has fallen out of favor. I think he deserves better treatment. ( )

Carl Sandburg's autobiography of his early years, from birth to about his mid-twenties, with one or two flash-forwards. What strikes me most about this book is the immediacy it lends to such historical figures as Lincoln: Sandburg died around 1970. I was in my teens, and knew of Sandburg at the time. Sandburg describes in his book meeting and knowing people who worked for Lincoln or fought in the Civil War, and older pioneers who opened the Midwest in the early 1800's. Much of the book tells more about the town and people Sandburg knew, until the latter third of the book when he finally leaves his town for a months-long trip hoboing across America, and then enlists and fights in Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American War. A fine memoir by a man I much admire, with a closing sentence as full of meaning as any I have read. ( )