Waste Not, Want Not

I do love the weekend papers.  The number of purchases I've made after reading interviews and extracts in the glossies... well, it's not really helped reduce the number of unread books I have!  Last year, I was intrigued by articles about 'A Life Discarded' by Alexander Masters, so trundled off to the bookshop to treat myself.  Should I have made resisted?

'A Life Discarded'
by Alexander Masters
(Fourth Estate, 2016)

'A Life Discarded' is the story of 148 diaries found in a Cambridge skip by two academics, which were then passed on to biographer of the unusual Alexander Masters.  After paying no attention to them for a number of years and several house moves, he finally picked up a volume and started reading.  This was the beginning of a five year project that would involve graphologists, detectives and archivists, not to mention 'I', the enigmatic diarist.  But did Masters get any closer to the mysterious writer and find a meaningful story in the millions of words?

I was extremely disappointed by this book.  It's so unbelievably depressing.  What made for several interesting articles led to a very dull and at times almost narcissistic tome. It seemed to be more about what the 'biographer' thought about his reaction to the subject and her diaries rather than the subject herself, wrapped up in an at times pretentious and repetitive prose and always keeping everything at arm's length.  I felt that this was a project he didn't really want and had no passion for, but felt he had to do in light of what had happened to the diaries' finders.

Assuming that Masters was writing 'A Life Discarded' out of a sense of duty rather than passion, then the apparent lack of feeling the author seemed to have for 'I' starts to make sense.  Without giving too much away, 'I' has led a life where dreams never became reality and what talent she had was never fully encouraged or explored, largely through her own inaction.  Although Masters seems to identify with this as a writer, I never really got a sense of how he felt about 'I'.  As a reader, I knew I felt compassion and pity, but as far as I could tell, Masters felt nothing, not even contempt at someone wasting their potential or a sense of injustice that she'd been let down by those around her.  Perhaps biographers should try to stay neutral, but if that's the case, why did so much of this book seem to be about Masters?

Ironically, this book feels like a wasted opportunity.  It could've been about the many ways lives are lost, through inaction, accident and early death, but instead somehow those threads didn't come together to create a stronger narrative and central theme.  Rather than being depressing, perhaps the book would've become inspirational and about making the most of what time you have, no matter how short or long.  If, if, if...

Unfortunately, I wish I'd resisted and not bought this book.  At least I read it, though, and you never know, whoever reads it next might not be so disappointed.  After all, tomorrow is another day!

Now, what next...

Related Links

'The Biography of a Nameless Person' (The Guardian, 14/05/2016)