Lukas Gregor Ten titles have already settled on our market, which by their name participate in the personality/cult of Steve Jobs. If we intend to penetrate more into the corners of the real Jobs, we are de facto left with only one, and that is the biography written by Walter Isaacson. After three years, it now has the opportunity to stand alongside it with the memorial title of Chrisann Brennan, Jobs' long-time partner and mother of his daughter Lisa, entitled Steve Jobs - My Life, My Love, My Curse.
Probably every second reader will carry a skeptical question, whether by chance Brennan wrote a three-hundred-page publication, mainly because the title itself (and its position in the life of Steve Jobs) has the potential to open more than a small number of readers' wallets. The author, of course, does not state anything like that, on the contrary, she gives reasons from the beginning of her book, which definitely have their justification and we have no choice but to believe them. And to trust Brennan throughout all the following chapters.
We can blindly believe that everything that appears in the book is true, or with slight caution simply perceive the text as one of the views of the events in which Jobs played an important role. But if you take both Isaacson's gun and Brennan's memories, no other, alternative version of history comes out of the comparison. Only in the case of Isaacson, the issues in question – quite logically thanks to the concept of the book – took up much less space, but they in no way beautified Jobs. However, if Jobs came out of Isaacson's biography as a genius of his time, albeit a humanly contradictory one, when you read the lines from Chrisann Brennan, you get the feeling that you really wouldn't want to live with Jobs. It does not address its influence on the use of computers, on breaking new ground in the world of technology. And if so, very carefully, with a distance, with a little respect, but also contempt. In other words, he practically ignores it completely space, for which we all worship him so much, we like, instead plunges us into intimate interpersonal conflicts, revealing capriciousness, unreliability, oddly directed tenacity as well as unseemly disinterest. In this way, Jobs almost always behaves in a way that we ourselves would not be comfortable with.
But the book has the indisputable quality that Brennan's relationship with Jobs is ambivalent. In short, it is an incredibly diverse range of emotions, from deep love to sincere hatred. From trying to get rid of Jobs completely, to reconciling and admitting that she de facto never stopped loving Jobs. What could now sound like an exemplary robbery of the red library, however, has its justification in the text, moments that Brennan describes very clearly and vividly. We can put ourselves in her situation, we can wrestle with ourselves, when fascination with Jobs' personality clashes with revulsion and even contempt for his inhumanity, i.e. the absence of social understanding and sensitivity. Immediately, however, there is a flash of light when Jobs emerges enlightened, with understanding and a friendly deed.
Brennan did an excellent job with her first book. He does not have the literary language refined by experience like Isaacson, but he can formulate often complex thought/emotional processes into shapes that we can imagine. Although from time to time the structure somehow stumbles, chronology and thematic unity are lost, on the intention talk about it all however, it does not change or harm him. It will help to better evaluate the book if you don't take it much as a literary work, certainly not as a biography. It is more like an open statement, a conversation with someone close to you, or maybe even with an expert, a therapist. It captures a sometimes scattered mind, sometimes unclear feelings and a relationship with Jobs. It really opens a whole series of painful wounds, it does not shy away from admitting moments that were, on the contrary, very nice.
You will have a good time reading. But if you worship Jobs as a genius and a perfect person, perhaps after the first chapters you will throw the book away with the complaint that Brennan wrote it for money anyway. Best of all, his personality, which we tend to look up to so much, is characterized by the connection from the end of the book: broken perfection, and such a label has - like Jobs, like the whole book - its pros and cons...
If you are interested in the book, you can currently find it in the publisher's e-shop for 297 crowns.
nice translation from English, I like it more than the original name…. I guess I'll reach for the translation when it gets to the iBooks store.
Thanks for the tip!
There could also be a competition for a book :)
iBooks Store?