Walter W. Benjamin

I was looking for the OTHER Walter Benjamin when I happened across this mammoth memoir, THE MAGICAL YEARS: A BOYHOOD REVISITED. I quickly realized that the author, Walter W. Benjamin, was not the famed philosopher/essayist, but was nevertheless intrigued by the book's description as "memories of the Great Depression." And that much is true. The author was just three when the stock market crashed and plunged the country into ten years of hard times. So his memories of those years are quite vivid, sometimes humorous, at other times sad. Stories of the family garden, chickens, daily meals with the whole family (five kids) at the tabke with father saying grace, car trips, youthful shenanigans, hunting and fishing, school, church (Methodist), girls, etc. bring Benjamin's long ago boyhood to life. And I could relate to many of these stories, despite an age difference of nearly twenty years. Because yes, I had to look after chickens, hoe and weed the garden, help with haying, summers at the lake swimming, etc. Benjamin's farm experiences were gleaned from summers he lived with a Dutch family outside of Pipestone, Minnesota. He was a town kid whose father was a physician, and their family was actually very comfortably well off, despite the Depression. His life was never, in fact, marred by those generally hard times. The Benjamins took summer vacations to a lake, always had plenty to eat, a large comfortable home, and a much better life than most. Even so, I greatly enjoyed the author's memories, if not his constant comparisons to today and preachy asides about how everything has gone downhill since his "magical years." Benjamin spent most of his adult life as a professor of business and medical ethics in the Religion Department of Hamline University in St Paul, and it shows in the many righteous comparisons of then versus now. Unfortunately, at least to my mind, such philosophising and comparing took away from the charm of the memories themselves, and became tedious, if not outright annoying. This became especially problematic in the last third of the book, when he had much to say about FDR's New Deal programs, often being quite critical. Politics raised its ugly head, and, paired with a patina of religious opinions, well, I kinda glazed over and began skimming whole pages. Which I guess is to say I prefer my memoirs 'straight,' nor diluted or contaminated by moralistic opining. Once again, Benjamin's stories of his boyhood are A-plus charming, often funny, or even very moving (a baby brother's death from polio, his father's final years with dementia). It's the extra commentary that I found off-putting. It seemed as if he couldn't decide if he was writing memoir, history, religion or philosophy, so he tried to cram it all in there. Those parts get a C. Sorry, Dr B, but you can't have it all, at least not in one book. I'll recommend your memories, they shine, but not all the preaching. I can think of two other memoirs of growing up in the Great Depression that far outshine this one: Samuel Hynes's THE GROWING YEARS and Curtis Harnack's WE HAVE ALL GONE AWAY.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (mehr)