Scan barcode
radbear76's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting guy but he had some strange views on sex, diet, and family that makes me glad I wasn't his kid.
thegoodmariner's review against another edition
2.0
This bio seemed determined at all costs to read the documents to make Gandhi someone you couldn’t like. Everyone is complicated, and that’s fine. But the reading of history should be complicated, too. Give me a break 🙄
moreteamorecats's review
4.0
By sheer coincidence, I read this about a month after finishing [b:Malcolm X A Life of Reinvention|7940589|Malcolm X A Life of Reinvention|Manning Marable|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347690389s/7940589.jpg|11366179]. Both are recent, heralded biographies of 20th-c. liberation/anti-colonial leaders. Both are critical, sometimes sharply so, of their subjects as both men and politicians, but ultimately sympathetic. The books are not otherwise comparable: Marable was both a scholar and an activist, hence the political scope and immense detail of his Malcolm book, whereas Lelyveld's reporting background equips him more for vivid images and enticing connections than for archival organization or theoretical analysis.
My comparison is meant to get at tone, which is maybe the most important thing in the Lelyveld. He isn't awed by Gandhi's personal sanctity or political ingenuity; rather, he treats them as facts and tries to understand how they functioned. Lelyveld's Gandhi was capable of effecting communal transformation, but didn't do so predictably or consistently, because of the limitations of Gandhi's human frailty and of any human politics. When Lelyveld invokes "tragedy" as a category for Gandhi's lapses, I hear less Aristotle than [a:Reinhold Niebuhr|31146|Reinhold Niebuhr|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1274203781p2/31146.jpg], whose contemporary, contrarian reading of Gandhi in the concluding chapters of [b:Moral Man and Immoral Society|55235|Moral Man and Immoral Society Study in Ethics and Politics (Library of Theological Ethics)|Reinhold Niebuhr|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385233561s/55235.jpg|53848] bears rereading in light of Lelyveld's reporting. The point, for Niebuhr as well, is not to tear Gandhi down but to see him in a realistic light.
If I were a serious student of Gandhi (either as a scholar or a latter-day acolyte) I'd probably find much to critique here, as the Gujarati government evidently did. (The BJP leadership comes in for a drubbing toward the end of Lelyveld's book; I have to wonder whether that too was a factor in the ban.) As it stands, one of my major takeaways from this book is how little I truly know about either Gandhi or India in general. That's always a very good feeling. More things to learn!
That said, one place where Lelyveld, to my eyes, suffers most seriously by comparison to Marable is in his undertheorized handling of the relation between politics and religion. What intrigues me most about Gandhi and Malcolm both is how they understood their political and religious programs of national liberation as a coherent whole. African-American studies has developed methodologies and literatures that make it very easy to see those two realities together; Marable, as one of the deans of Af-Am in his lifetime, had all the relevant strings to his bow. Lelyveld does not. He writes well and thickly about political alliances and confluences of interest, but tends to treat religious scenes as local color. He recognizes the connections Gandhi drew between the national life and that of prayer and celibacy, but at just those moments of connection he finds Gandhi most opaque. That's probably a consequence of Lelyveld's implicitly Weberian theory of politics and religion—but is that Gandhi's fault?
Still: Terrific writing, consistently interesting to this relative neophyte, that left me feeling less ignorant but wanting more. That's most of what I ask from a book of popular nonfiction.
My comparison is meant to get at tone, which is maybe the most important thing in the Lelyveld. He isn't awed by Gandhi's personal sanctity or political ingenuity; rather, he treats them as facts and tries to understand how they functioned. Lelyveld's Gandhi was capable of effecting communal transformation, but didn't do so predictably or consistently, because of the limitations of Gandhi's human frailty and of any human politics. When Lelyveld invokes "tragedy" as a category for Gandhi's lapses, I hear less Aristotle than [a:Reinhold Niebuhr|31146|Reinhold Niebuhr|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1274203781p2/31146.jpg], whose contemporary, contrarian reading of Gandhi in the concluding chapters of [b:Moral Man and Immoral Society|55235|Moral Man and Immoral Society Study in Ethics and Politics (Library of Theological Ethics)|Reinhold Niebuhr|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385233561s/55235.jpg|53848] bears rereading in light of Lelyveld's reporting. The point, for Niebuhr as well, is not to tear Gandhi down but to see him in a realistic light.
If I were a serious student of Gandhi (either as a scholar or a latter-day acolyte) I'd probably find much to critique here, as the Gujarati government evidently did. (The BJP leadership comes in for a drubbing toward the end of Lelyveld's book; I have to wonder whether that too was a factor in the ban.) As it stands, one of my major takeaways from this book is how little I truly know about either Gandhi or India in general. That's always a very good feeling. More things to learn!
That said, one place where Lelyveld, to my eyes, suffers most seriously by comparison to Marable is in his undertheorized handling of the relation between politics and religion. What intrigues me most about Gandhi and Malcolm both is how they understood their political and religious programs of national liberation as a coherent whole. African-American studies has developed methodologies and literatures that make it very easy to see those two realities together; Marable, as one of the deans of Af-Am in his lifetime, had all the relevant strings to his bow. Lelyveld does not. He writes well and thickly about political alliances and confluences of interest, but tends to treat religious scenes as local color. He recognizes the connections Gandhi drew between the national life and that of prayer and celibacy, but at just those moments of connection he finds Gandhi most opaque. That's probably a consequence of Lelyveld's implicitly Weberian theory of politics and religion—but is that Gandhi's fault?
Still: Terrific writing, consistently interesting to this relative neophyte, that left me feeling less ignorant but wanting more. That's most of what I ask from a book of popular nonfiction.
quintusmarcus's review
2.0
For me, this was a terribly unsatisfying book. The author spends all of his effort nit-picking at Gandhi, trying to humanize him. Underneath this devotion to setting the record straight, there is a distinct whiff of hostility. Gandhi deserves better.
alienkeren's review
3.0
This book changes (almost) everything I thought about Gandhi. I think it's a good thing because it makes me question the real quality of a person that I adore. It makes me learn that to really truly admire one single soul is worthless because that person is a mere human, whom came with all the baggage that other humans have in life.
In terms of Gandhi, I am glad that this book shows that he sometime slipped too, sometime he could be a hypocrite too, just like the rest of us. I think the most intriguing 'slip' for me is regarding his sexual activity. I was very shock to learn that he actually encouraged his son to stop having sex altogether because having sex means you're letting lust to control your body. That was mind blowing. And then after that he has this weird relationship with a guy and a grandniece whom he shared his bed with. Right then I thought, damn! What a crazy hypocrite! But again, it is a great reminder that Gandhi is just another human being, like the person next to you.
In terms of Gandhi, I am glad that this book shows that he sometime slipped too, sometime he could be a hypocrite too, just like the rest of us. I think the most intriguing 'slip' for me is regarding his sexual activity. I was very shock to learn that he actually encouraged his son to stop having sex altogether because having sex means you're letting lust to control your body. That was mind blowing. And then after that he has this weird relationship with a guy and a grandniece whom he shared his bed with. Right then I thought, damn! What a crazy hypocrite! But again, it is a great reminder that Gandhi is just another human being, like the person next to you.
More...