My Childhood

I have not, yet, finished reading Maxim Gorky’s ‘My Childhood’ but I am looking forward to returning to this book. It grabbed me from the first few sentences, and would have completed reading had I taken the book with me on vacation. As Gorky brings the reader into the bedroom from where his father laid dead, he describes the site of his father, his distraught mother and his grandmother, who he met for the first time and has an immediate fondness. He is taken to live with his mother’s family and there is a sense of doom. This author creates the most picturesque flow of the human story seen from a young boy living in the early 1900’s Russia. Gorky has impressed me so that I will be sure to read more of his books. I highly recommend this book.

Long time since I have read such a poignant and well written book. Definitely worth a read as soon as possible!

One of my favorite books from my student days that I re-purchased (lost my original decades ago) to revisit now that I am 40 years older.BUT this version is not a regular sized novel - its letter sized paper.

Like Dostoevsky? Then this is for you. Great literature in every sense -- extremely well written -- a passionate account of Gorky's life in a large family growing up 19th Century Russia. Vividly described through his own eyes as a child suddenly thrust into a hurricane of conflicting, very Russian beliefs, desires, hatreds, traditions and often violent rages. After his father dies when he's a young boy, his mother distances herself from him and his grandmother takes him to her own family in another city, where he imperfectly fits into a tradesman's family consisting of a violent but somehow lovable grandfather, young angry uncles vying for their father's inheritance, tragic nieces . . . . There's an account of beatings from his grandfather you'll never forget!

Gorky's account of his brutal childhood in a poor and seemingly lawless village of 1860s-1870s Czarist Russia is matched by Gorky's own deep compassion and humanism for more humane, considerate and honest relations among all people. Gorky, much like the 19th century Russian writers of the prior immediate generation, depicts characters with effortless nuance, emotional empathy cutting to the core, and comic detail. He offers concise lyricism for nature, descriptions that 'put you in the room,' and can write about people with fairness and balance even when their injustice targeted him. An amazing account as well as accomplishment.

It is difficult to judge how authentic these youth memoirs are. This book is like a window opening into Russian life in the late nineteenth century showing the poverty of the people and how they managed to survive. The way Gorky depicts his maternal grandparents is magnificent. Especially the believes and ideas of his grandmother are echoes of a now long gone past. In the middle ages and in late antiquity people would understand her way of life better than we 'modern' readers. I enjoyed the book from beginning to end even though I am certainly not a Gorky fan.

This is the heart rending account of a person who not only survived the poverty and miserable conditions of his environment and the cruel treatment by his grandfather but went on to become a great man , compassionate in his treatment of his fellowmen, a great literary figure,and one of the few moderate and sensible socialist leaders of the pre-stalinist period.Even Lenin respected him though they were at oppositeends of the political spectrum!.

I plead ignorance Didn't know the guy and don't care.

What a wonderful book. I am now reading every book he wrote. No comparison to today's writers!

Amzing Book must buy.

Well written, great to learn from about a totally different way of life

Gorky's childhood memories brush a very outspoken picture of `that close-knit, suffocating little world of pain and suffering, where the Russian man of the street used to live.'It is a world full of brutal violence: husbands beating savagely their wives, severely and intensively flogging of children, gamblers becoming totally destitute, alcoholism, dangerous diseases (smallpox, ulcers) and cruel street games (cock and dog fighting, cat torturing, making fun of drunken beggars). Socially, there is a big chasm between the haves and have-nots: their children cannot play together. The poor cannot feed all their new born babies and expose them.On the other hand, this bunch of `wild animals' is deeply, but primitively religious. They ask God constantly to forgive their sins.Despite this barbarous environment, Gorky considers his childhood as `a beehive to which various single obscure people brought the honey of their knowledge and thoughts on life; often their honey was dirty and bitter, but every scrap of knowledge was honey all the same.'There is also another reason why he put these painful memories on paper: `It is the truth and the truth must be known. The Russian man in the street is sufficiently healthy and young in spirit to overcome the horrors.'Although he lost his love for his family and was thrown out of their home, he remains highly optimistic for mankind: `Life is always surprising us by the bright, healthy and creative human powers of goodness. It is those powers that awaken our indestructible hope that a better and more human life will once again be reborn.'Gorky was received with open arms by the communists, but that love story ended in total personal disaster.This brutal picture of the man in the street should remind us from where we all come from.Not to be missed.

You had to fee. Sorry for this child and others who were brought p this way in this draft. Very disfunction all families eeki get out an existence due to POVERTY. Having a little education was a benefit. God plays a major role in their everyday lives and was their foundation of strength and hope.