Based on a true story, it is the story of Mitch Albom, a successful professional journalist, sports writer who regularly visits with his dying professor.
A minefield of maxisms, aphorisms, and philosophical truisms applicable to living and dying.
Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom
Synopsis (from GoodReads)
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn’t you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you?
Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying of ALS – or motor neurone disease – Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final ‘class’: lessons in how to live.
Richard’s comments
The book is a good read on many levels.
The reader will pause often, dwelling on the paragraph just read, applying it to their own life’s experiences, considering its validity, or simply mulling over it. There are many paragraphs in the book that will stop the reader, pauses to ponder. The story is the author’s recollection of the days he spent with his dying professor where the professor made the author self-analyze his life, his way of living, his value system, and his principles.
The author, Mitch Albom, captures everything about what is essentially a journal summarizing his regular Tuesday visits with his old professor, Morrie Schwartz. Morrie has ALS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, possibly well known as Lou Gehrig’s disease because of the Gary Cooper movie, “The Pride of the Yankees.” [ A timeless movie well worth watching. ]
Morrie, maybe a stereotypical caricature of a wise old Jewish teacher, a Solomon before a class, he may be dying but his soul and spirit are as vitalized as they were in his healthiest days. The visits become gentle nudges where Morrie prods his student, Albom, into thinking about living rather than dying. Writing this book must have been very bittersweet because the closer Morrie inched toward death, the more incisive became his gentle nudges, each more poignant and more penetrating.
The book could have been titled “Comments On Living From One Who Is Dying.” Morrie touches many areas of living: what people value, the busyness of people’s lives, how people are lured into buying things unnecessarily, people’s growing isolation in a social media technologically advanced world.
Morrie laments that people are living anesthetized lives, numbed into desensitized living by corporate drivel, provocative marketing, and capitalist greed. His criticism of the possession-oriented lifestyle of the world is his attempt at gently persuading the reader to believe that how we live is detrimental to society as a whole. As people buy more and more things, they become increasingly inured to others. Our society is losing love, the essential mortar for binding people together.
Final word…
Albom writes a polished and engaging story. His interaction with Morrie is captivating and emotional. For readers who have had a “Morrie” in their lives, they will be reminded of that person; for those who have not, they will envy the loving and respectful relationship as described in this story.
A book that makes you feel rather than think.
4/5 stars
