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The Man Within My Head (2012)

by Pico Iyer(Favorite Author)

3.66 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

030726761X (ISBN13: 9780307267610)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Knopf

review 1: Iyer has been haunted for most of his life by Graham Greene. He refers to Greene as his 'shadow associate'. Iyer tries here to work out what it is about Greene's writing (Iyer never met him but wrote him one letter) that makes him so talismanic. There is much analysis of Greene's novels and character not all of which I understood or cared about. It appears as if the British writer has taken the place of Iyer's own father. Iyer, as great a traveller or home evader as Greene, bops back and forth in time and details a near fatal car crash he was in in the mountains of Bolivia near the end of this book. A must for all fans of introspection and Graham Greene.
review 2: I heard about this book through the New York Time Book Review. An admirer of Pico Iyer, I expect... moreed it to be a work of fiction. Instead, it was a great biographical study of the British writer Graham Greene. I found his paternal treatment of Graham extraordinary. I also thoroughly enjoyed an aspect that most readers encounter but rarely vocalize--how writers we enjoy often exist as voices in our head. They have a rare ability to take experiences before we ever encounter them and contextualize them. More so, these writers have an ability to help us understand these experiences afterward since they often view the world through a verisimilitude prism. I also enjoyed the life lessons and perspectives which Iyer offers based on his experiences as well as that he learned through Greene. I did have to give this text a lower rating, though then you may expect given the first paragraph. I wish Iyer would have provided additional context to the novels he cited regularly in the text. I often found myself lost, especially at the beginning. Perhaps that is because I expected a work of fiction and found myself within a biography instead. Still, some additional background info would have helped. About 1/4 of the way through, I thought perhaps Iyer would inspire me to read Greene... yet that never quite happened.For scholars of Graham Greene, I am certain his unique treatment of the author and his writings will be enlightening and entertaining. I suspect readers interested in biographies would find enjoyment as well. For those looking for a Pico Iyer work of fiction, I don't think this will be for you unless you are interested in a metacognitive exploration of the structure of Iyer as a writer and his approach to the writing process, as well as an explanation for the subjects he chooses to write about as well as the character archetypes and plots common among his texts. less

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