Reviews

Review: Things I Didn't Know

Editorial Review - Kirkus Reviews

A sometimes poignant, sometimes nasty, often amusing and always erudite memoir by the historian and art critic (Goya, 2003, etc.). Hughes begins his account with near-death (a 1999 car crash in Australia), ends with the beginnings of his professional life in 1970 (aboard a plane from Rome to New York City, where he will begin his long tenure as art critic for Time magazine). In between are stories about his family (the Hugheses had some prominence Down Under; his father was a heroic pilot in WWI), about his fierce Roman Catholic schooling (it didn't take), the genesis of his love of art, his decision to leave Australia, his loves and losses and failed marriage, his European travels, his gradual emergence as a writer, his relationships with artists and publishers and the BBC (for whom he freelanced). At times, Hughes is gleefully self-deprecating, no more so than during his protracted tragi-comic account of his marriage to a woman who, throughout their relationship, apparently slept with just about every weirdo in London (and elsewhere) in the '60s, including Jimi Hendrix, whose contribution to Hughes family harmony was a case of the clap. "I was a cuckold going cuckoo," he laments. The author also skewers and grills a number of folks and phenomena and fashions—from Tiny Tim to Irwin Shaw (who once stole Hughes's girlfriend) to Easy Rider to what he views as the entire anti-intellectual, superficial, hyper-religious, ultra-phony, trashy, celebrity-besotted American culture of today. Some highlights: the merry mortars he launches against the Australian press, his stories about Catholic boarding school, his account of Florence's disastrous 1966 flood, his flops as a writer (he couldn't finish a book on da Vinci), his swift report about his courtship by Time. (An error: Polonius is addressing Laertes, not Hamlet, when he says "to thine own self be true.") A long, unblinking look in time's mirror, by a writer who has spent his life mastering his subject and his craft.

User reviews

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - David Nash - Goodreads

"Things I Didn't Know" starts with the most exciting chapter of the book, his recent car crash; but then gets bogged down in the details of his early life. The book ends abruptly in 1970 leaving 1970 ... Read full review

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - Brad - Goodreads

An interesting individual, brutally honest about himself and his passion for the Visual Arts. While I agree that the book tends to ramble on, and that Hughes doesn't go much beyond 1970, I still found ... Read full review

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - Sue - Goodreads

he's deep, intriguing, incisive and I want to read more of his books! what a life... even tho he ends this one when he goes to Time at age 31. Read full review

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - Bob Speechley - Goodreads

There is lot of interesting information in this book about the early life of Robert Hughes before he became an acclaimed, internationally respected Art critic. His family, schooldays and his early ... Read full review

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - Tom Dale - Goodreads

I give up. I thought his being dead now might inspire a bit of a push to get through to the end but it's not happening. I loved The Fatal Shore but this... no. It would be an odd autobiography that ... Read full review

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - Clint - Goodreads

Did not like the first section much at all. After he goes to Italy the book is pretty good. The section about the Florence flood is very good. Read full review

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - Luca - Goodreads

A little disappointment, under my expectations... Read full review

Review: Things I Didn't Know

User Review - Laurie - Goodreads

Like "Goya," "Things I Didn't Know" begins with an account of the author's automobile accident, which in this case leads him to review his life up to 1970. He gives an interesting account of his ... Read full review