Chronicles of Wasted Time

Combines "Infernal Grove" and "Green Stick", the two memoir volumes with an additional 6 pages of the incompleted third volume. As a young man, I recall Muggeridge's appearances somewhat on Buckley's Firing Line and found his old scold persona off putting. Superbly eloquent, he nonetheless was not a voice for anyone, or so it seemed, who relished life and all that it might have to offer. He seemed tired, cynical and cranky. These memoirs offer partial evidence as to why. After over 40 years of largely celebrated, vagabond British journalism, an Intelligence Ministry stint in WWII, and the occasion to engage with all manner of mid-century literary and political notables (The Webbs, Beaverbrook, Greene, Waugh and Philby), Muggeridge show more finally found his life's passion in mystical Christianity. The title of the combined volume headlines all this, but there is really very little of Augustine's Confessions in this narrative except for an admirable candor and humility. He is often as cutting on himself as on those he observed and reported. Anyone looking for a splendid, beautifully written assessment (an enormous novelistic talent unfulfilled) of the years between the World Wars as well as a wry, cool look at life generally, will find no improvement beyond "Chronicles of a Wasted Time". show less