Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir
by Robert Hughes
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Robert Hughes has trained his critical eye on many major subjects, from the city of Barcelona to the history of his native Australia. Now he turns that eye inward, onto himself and the world that formed him. Hughes analyzes his experiences the way he might examine a Van Gogh or a Picasso. From his relationship with his stern and distant father to his Catholic upbringing and school years; and from his development as an artist, writer, and critic to his growing appreciation of art and his show more exhilaration at leaving Australia to discover a new life, Hughes' memoir is an extraordinary feat of exploration and celebration. "From the Trade Paperback edition." show lessTags
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Robert Hughes is one of Australia's great expatriate curmudgeons, and for all his flaws he is a brilliant man and a compelling writer. This autobiography of Hughes' early life starts, oddly, with a chapter about his recent car accident in WA. He tells his side of that big media story as a tall-poppy assassination. I'm inclined to believe a good bit of it, as he doesn't whitewash his own foolishness in other areas.
But then it's back to the beginning of his life. There's family history, and plenty of lengthy digressions on history and culture and religion and the general state of the media and the nation.
Occasionally he shows how much he's lost touch with modern Australia, but mostly he's entertaining and challenging. It's good to be show more reminded of the narrowness of 1950s Australian culture - not at all the sentimental dream puffed up by the recent Liberal party. (And then it's extra odd that Hughes is an intimate of Malcolm Turnbull.) show less
But then it's back to the beginning of his life. There's family history, and plenty of lengthy digressions on history and culture and religion and the general state of the media and the nation.
Occasionally he shows how much he's lost touch with modern Australia, but mostly he's entertaining and challenging. It's good to be show more reminded of the narrowness of 1950s Australian culture - not at all the sentimental dream puffed up by the recent Liberal party. (And then it's extra odd that Hughes is an intimate of Malcolm Turnbull.) show less
I give up. I thought his being dead now might inspire a bit of a push to get through to the end but it's not happening. I loved The Fatal Shore but this... no.
It would be an odd autobiography that wasn't self-obsessed but somehow Hughes manages to make it more obviously so than most and to take a clearly interesting family history and turn it into a turgid, whining, bitter drone.
It would be an odd autobiography that wasn't self-obsessed but somehow Hughes manages to make it more obviously so than most and to take a clearly interesting family history and turn it into a turgid, whining, bitter drone.
Wonderful writing, compelling and lucid details as usual from Hughes. He never has the most penetrating insights nor has he lived the most admirable existence, but he presents them in an extraordinary way.
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53+ Works 11,271 Members
Robert Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia on July 28, 1938. He studied art and architecture at the University of Sydney. He pursued art criticism mostly as a sideline while painting, writing poetry and serving as a cartoonist for the weekly intellectual journal The Observer. He left Australia and spent time in Italy before settling in London, show more where he became a well-known critical voice and wrote for several newspapers. He was chief art critic for Time magazine for over 30 years. He wrote several books including The Fatal Shore, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America, Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America, Things I Didn't Know, and Rome. He also hosted an eight-part documentary about the development of modernism from the Impressionists through Warhol entitled The Shock of the New. It was seen by more than 25 million viewers when it ran first on BBC and then on PBS. He also wrote a book by the same name about the series. He died after a long illness on August 6, 2012 at the age of 74. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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