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Things I Didn't Know by Hughes, Robert

ISBN: 9781741664751 PUBLISHER: Vintage (Australia) FORMAT: Paperback PAGES: 528 PUBLICATION DATE: 1.11.2007 DIMENSIONS: 19 x 13 x 3 centimetres

DESCRIPTION: Volume I of the recently deceased renowned art critic Robert Hughes's memoirs. The opening chapter tells the brutal story of the car accident some years ago that nearly took his life and left him physically and mentally shattered. In this beautifully written and searingly honest opening, that could be a small book in itself, Hughes makes you understand the trauma of devastating physical damage - and most important, he shows us the thought processes that one goes through when confronting death and a reemergence towards life. Using the experience of the accident to justify the need to explore his past, Hughes then takes us through his childhood. What makes this book extraordinary is that it is not one bit self-indulgent. He writes of intimately personal details, but he uses every aspect of his life to expound on broader, universal subjects. Hughes uses his fractured and incomplete relationship with his father to explore family relationships. He uses his father's heroic deeds as a WW1 pilot to explain the history of modern warfare, which then turns into an eloquent anti-war tract. Hughes' years at Jesuit Riverview, a Catholic boys boarding school in Sydney, makes for an entertaining and often hilarious chapter - but it also lets him present us with a history of the Jesuits and leads to a virulently anti-religious point of view. His constant, razor-like examination of Catholicism is a controversial element of the book. Hughes then

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