Scot's Reviews > The Last Lecture

I will probably burn in hell--well, okay, suffer a few extra millenia in purgatory, maybe--for only giving this book two stars. It's one of the top gift books of 2008, if you didn't yet view "The Last Lecture" on YouTube you probably heard about it via Oprah or friends or co-workers: a talented computer science prof at Carnegie Mellon with three adorable little toddlers and a loving wife learns he has pancreatic cancer and about six months to live, so he gives a farewell lecture to his students, his university, and the world, to give us some life guidance before he passes away.

He's a smart man with a beautiful family and a great job. And now he must deal with death--the Grim Reaper we must all ultimately confront. But he chooses to be upbeat, and empowering, using positive energy to help us all be better folks. Why then do I not like this book??

There's something about the way he does it that strikes me as being knowingly and calculated self-focused on his part, even while he claims he is trying to only reach and help others. I know I should cut him some slack--my God, the man was dying, he is dead now as I write!--but the whole set up of the lecture, and then the book that reworks a lot of the lecture, is to make us feel incredible pity even as he tells us not to. He tells us in the beginning of the lecture it won't be about his wife and kids and how much he loves them--but of course that's exactly where he ends, so we are totally consumed in sympathy and crying our eyes out at the end (if we have any compassion at all).

As a cathartic reading for families and caregivers dealing with terminal illness, this book could probably be an effective salve, but as a homily of wisdom for the ages (or common sense to live by, take your pick as it works as both) this book offers many of the same platitudes one would find in any wise sermon or self-help essay. A lot of these pearls of wisdom are offered here, again and again, within a framework of "see how great I was" or "see how great my family was" or "see how successful I have always been." He does share that in college he was thought of by many as a self-centered jerk, that some had acccused him of the sin of arrogance. I suspect that as much as he tries to adopt the voice of an Everyman and claim we could and should all adopt his maxims of wisdom, I see some of that old arrogance that he probably still retains as he tells anecdote after anecdote where he turns out the star.

I can tell he was a very good teacher who truly cared about his students. You can easily see how much he loves his kids, and he keeps re-iterating this whole "Last Lecture" and then the follow-up book marketing campaign were really supposed to be gifts to them. Perhaps if he had been a bit more honest about how much personal pleasure he got out of all this limelight and attention at the end, that indeed a good part of this was to make himself be the center of attention one last forceful time, I would have felt even more respect than I already have. But if you've seen the video, I really don't think you need to read the book. And if you do decide to read it anyway, consume it in small bites--don't read it straight through in one sitting, as I did. The advice (which is often quite sensible and praiseworthy) will probably go down easier, and remain with you longer.