vicfar's Full Review: Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow - The Last Lecture
Last year I promised that next time I move I will shed 5% my book collection. I know it will be difficult, because I love my books. This book, however, is already on the list.
This work, which can be read in a couple of hours, is based on Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon, where he was a professor of Computer Science before his untimely death in 2008. Randy, a super-positive/glass always half full/lemonade-making fellow, finds out he has pancreatic cancer and 6 months to live. He must say goodbye to his beloved wife and three children, the oldest being only 5. How does one do that? He decides to give a lecture which would be taped for his children. The Last Lecture contains a message to his children: pearls of wisdom, advice on how to live life, in a few words: his most cherished beliefs. Someone forced me to see the video as well, but I could only take ten minutes of it. This human drama just did not find any resonance in me.
Unfortunately, the touching situation and the courage with which Randy faces his demise aren’t enough to make this book interesting, or worth reading, or even bearable. I seem to be in a minority position here, because most people I have talked to have found the book inspirational, and one of them has indeed given me a copy.
The central theme of the book is that you should try to realize your childhood dreams.
A statement of incomparable banality, in my opinion. Among them, Randy cites going to Disneyland, working for Disney, meeting Captain Kirk (being him would be better), winning stuffed animals at amusement parks, and so on. Trying to live your childhood dreams makes you feel young, I guess, or perhaps simply an eternal child. Of course, the first thing on my mind was that pursuing your childhood dreams is no way to live an adult life.
The rest of the book is a collection of clichés, and according to Randy there is nothing wrong with clichés: he loves them. Stories about his childhood, memories of his mother, his father, lessons on how to work in a team, on how to share, inspire others, worry more about relationships than a new car, never give up, dream big, be a communitarian, no job is beneath you, my football coach taught me everything I need to know…. These are all lessons that one may well “internalize” in life, but which mean nothing when narrated by others.
If one wants to be picky, Pausch’s messages are inconsistent and reveal more the eclectic scientist with the head in the clouds (or in virtual reality) than Pausch the wise man. He brags about being on his honeymoon without his laptop. Pausch the workoholic thinks this is good life/work balance. A week with your dream woman without working. Wow! Most people I know would think the man compulsive. There is a story on paying twice at an automated cashier rather than wasting 15 minutes to apply for a refund. We are supposed to be inspired by such trivialities. Pausch then brags about not fixing his car dents because the car works anyway. Money wasting then money conscious.
Another cherished maxim is that when life presents you with brick walls, you must go through them. Sounds like the type of sport analogy Americans are fond of. I always found it dumb to compare life to a football match. As an example, he cites conquering the girl that would become his wife and landing a sabbatical with Disney. One would think a “brick wall” may apply to a paraplegic learning to walk again, but successfully courting a girl isn’t exactly something unusual. Don’t we all do that? Love has nothing to do with brick walls. And going to work for Disney isn’t exactly synonymous with the “purpose-filled life” we are all taught to aspire to.
To make the point that people are more important than cars, he pours soda on the back seat of his new car. It sounds really cool. Of course, most normal people think kids are more important than cars and yet don’t do theatrics to prove the obvious point. Doing so betrays an uneasiness with the statement itself and the realization that, as a father, he is an absentee. Inconsistencies like these abound. I am not saying Pausch is a phony, but also not a lucid man. This is clearly not a deeply thought out book. Pausch wasn’t enthusiastic about it, but he wrote it (perhaps to leave his family some extra money?), and the product must be judged with candor.
There is nothing that a dying man can teach a bunch of people who are NOT dying. The superficial “inspiration” we may receive, the brief sense of elation, will fade into our next chore, be it a tax return or cleaning the yard. These “awakenings” cannot be communicated. As to a legacy for his children, Pausch could have simply left a diary or a scrapbook.
In my world, taking center stage to announce everyone that you are dying (a la Jade Goody in her grotesque reality show), as appropriate as it may seem in our media-obsessed world, is an appalling demonstration of bad taste. Luckily, very few people go through this exercise. Not because they are clueless, but because they are humble. If Plato hadn’t been there, we would not even know what Socrates said on his deathbed.
In the end, one is confronted with the shocking realization that this short collection of banalities has become a best-seller. How can one explain that? Have I totally missed the boat? Why isn’t this inspiring to me? Well, some things resonate with you and some don’t. Even people I respect have been deeply affected by this booklet. I guess this boils down to a simple point for me: anyone who is dying and thinks he has found the answers in life had better say something deep. And to communicate a simple insight to someone who is not dying takes great literature. I occasionally re-read the last two pages of the novel l’Etranger, in which Meursault, sentenced to die, calmly awaits his execution. But it take a genius like Albert Camus to write this and bring tears to your eyes, although you know it is fiction. Pausch, in his little personal reality show, only elicits a yawn.
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