David Lipset

It escapes me how such a (potentially) interesting person who lived such a full rich life could end up with such a dull, plodding, mind-numbing biography. I can't even put my finger on what exactly is wrong with book by Lipset that seems to tick all the boxes - academic rigor, contextual background and a seemingly adequate balance between the scientific career and the (the details of his) personal life. All the boxes except 'interesting'. The closest I can approach it is that there is a sense of un-engagement with the subject, a lack of emotion or opinion. He marries and divorces, and seems to have on ongoing love-hate relationship with his mother and the closest we get to Bateson's inner life is a kind of series of dates and events - as if we are looking at a business diary. There's tantalising glimpses, in the way he engages with the families of the mentally disturbed (echoes of his own life and family perhaps...), but these are just laid on the page, elaborating a theory but not the man. Bateson, it seems to me, is at the crossroads of so many theories and lives that I will try again, but unfortunately the best that could be said for this book is that it didn't deflect me from that intention.… (more)