I pick up Peter Drucker; kiss the work week goodbye.
Wei Jian, a physics post-doc at Northwestern, has taken time to read Peter Drucker’s Adventures of Bystander.
I happened upon his post about it and, alas, I have picked up the book again.
Why alas? Because this book’s a mite hard to put down. Another blogger has called it a “gripping read,” a judgement with which I concur.
Drucker lived an amazing life. He grew in up a crumbling empire (the Austro-Hungarian) and was shaped by the powerful forces that drove Europe inexorably toward World War II.
Drucker was the good kind of bystander, the observant kind. He chose that role early (he tells the story of dropping out of a protest march and choosing bystanding as his life’s work), and the result, written when he was nearly 90, is a book that I read with jaw agape and eyes wide.
Drucker’s reporting bears out the saw that truth is stranger than fiction. Only real life, for example, would dare to present us with this conversation in a London merchant bank:
After Masha had left, Vladimir stayed in a corner with his head in his hands moaning. And Mr. Freedberg said to Robert: “Now you see how selfish it is of you not to let Marion Farquharson become Vladimir’s mistress?” “But Mr. Freedberg,” said Robert, “I love her. She’s my mistress.” “No,” said Mr. Freedberg, “she isn’t. She’s the firm’s courtesan.”
As I say, if some sneaky person were to photograph me reading this book, no doubt they would catch me slack-jawed, eyes like saucers, looking like a total moron. Which, come to think of it, compared to Drucker I am.
This book is incredibly expensive, over $30 at Amazon’s steep discount. But I don’t think it was smash hit, and it’s easy to get cheap. I suggest buying a $1 copy from abebooks; then you won’t feel guilty about taking it into the bathtub. It’s that kind of read. If it weren’t for Drucker’s trenchant insights and his deep concern for humanity, it’s the kind of read that would be a guilty pleasure.