Karl Marx: A Life

Rating:
Summary: Let us now praise famous ragamuffins!
Review: As the reader below observed, this book was a chilling read. Marx was a very strange fellow and this reading this book felt like surveying the scene of a car accident. It hurts to continue but one finds themselves so intrigued that they can hardly stop. For my part, I disagree thoroughly with just about every idea Marx had. Still, I thought it refreshing to read a biography of the man that objectively treated Marx as human first, ragamuffin later; Unlike the brief essay on him in Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals," which is meant only to slam Marx and infuriate the reader.

I took half a star away for the a-little-less-than-constant humor (or so the author thought.) At first it was mildly amusing, probably do to its gauche inapropriateness. After the first few chapters though, it became a nuisance. How about this one? "Like another Marx, Karl did not want to belong to any club that would have him as a member." PUKE!!

The other half star is deducted for a suggestion the author makes about three-quarters through, when discussing Das Kapital. He suggests that Marx did not mean Kapital to be a work of science, but a work of ART (he means this literally, not figuratively.) His evidence? Marx refered to Kapital as his "work of art" (my guess, this is metaphor). Also, the author argues, if Marx had already summed up the themes of Kapital in a speech a few years earlier (he did), then why did he write a 1000 page tome espousing the same ideas (he did). Honestly, with flimsy evidence like that, this claim looks utterly ridiculous - not to mention likely insulting to any Marxist or person who takes Marx seriously as a thinker. Enough to cost half a star.

Otherwise, this book is an unbiased, humanistic read that plays just like a novel. Marx, of course, is a far superior character than any author could ever devise and in the end, my bet is that whether you love or hate him, you will find yourselves modifying your opinion to ambivalence as Marx (the person, not the manifesto) is much too complicated to love or hate.

Rating:
Summary: Well written biography.
Review: Considering the obvious fact that there are absolutely no biographies of Karl Marx that are still in print, Wheen's book was quite informative. Mr. Wheen does not bore the reader with tedious descriptions of Marx's theories on dialectical materialism, or the struggle of class vs. class.

Wheen describes to the reader the real Karl Marx, the Marx who had a few of his children die because of disease, the Marx who struggled to earn enough money to put food on the table for his children( yet, when he got money, spent the lot of it on borgoise tastes, such as servants, silverware, and furniture). Wheen also describes a fact that is clearly evident to every mature adult on the planet, the "Communist Manifesto", is in no way analogous to the century we are living in, it is an interesting historical document( much like the works of Lenin, Trotsky, and Mao), that shouldn't be distributed as a plausible solution to issues that are prevalent in contemperary society. In a way, Wheen shows the reader that political parties that claim to be "Communist", such as the incredibly ridiculous and laughable Communist Party of America, are half-educated blockheads who have no real understanding of economics( or politics for that matter). Wheen vividly describes Marx's relationship with Friedrich Engels, Marx's main financial contributor, and the turmoil that spread through Europe like wildfire in 1848. Reading this book, Marx's comes across as sort of an empreror without a kingdom, or a general without an army(you know, a genius that is far ahead of his time, that people presently don't understand). If you would like a book that describes the Marxist theory, this book might help a little, but it won't profoundly impact your prevalent ideology, if you want a book about Marx's life and his place in events during the nineteenth century, then this book is a MUST HAVE.

Rating:
Summary: The man in Marx.
Review: In this very good biography, Wheen strives to "strip away the mythology . . . to rediscover Karl Marx, the man" (p. 1), and he succeeds. Much of the life of Marx reads like the life of Job. Following his 1818 birth, Marx's life was a struggle, spent mostly in poverty, and plagued with chronic ailments (including Job-like carbuncles). His relationship with his parents was "icy and distant" (p. 8) at best. Marx outlived his wife, Jenny, as well as four of his six children (p. 386). (The two surviving children later committed suicide.) Marx reportedly fathered an illegitimate son, Freddy Demuth, with the family housekeeper. However, unlike Job, when Marx died on March 14, 1883, he died without religious faith, and estranged from class and citizenship. Only eleven mourners attended Marx's funeral, and his death passed with little notice in Britain, his last home.

Wheen's unique personality is evident throughout this biography, although it rarely detracts from his complicated subject. He contrasts Marx, the husband and family patriarch, with Marx, the "hot-headed" intellectual who, together with Friedrich Engels, sparked revolutionary movements in France, Germany, and London. Wheen's 431-page biography also brings the friendship between Marx and Engels to life, and contains some memorable anecdotes. For instance, we find Marx loafing with his friends. We find him corresponding with his Victorian neighbor, Charles Darwin. "Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in human nature," Engels observes, "so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history" (p. 364).

Marx was a thinker with dreams, a true revolutionary, and a family man with a rich domestic life. Bottom line: after reading Wheen's book, you may not understand the "ism" in "Marxism" much better, but you'll be more familiar with the man in Marx.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: Anecdotes and humor -- but a melancholy tale...
Review: This book is chilling reading. It is difficult to put one's finger on the reason why. Perhaps because Karl Marx (1818-1883) was always a distant person - even while he lived As Marxism flickers out, Wheen takes us back in time to find the "historical Marx". A solid grounding in 19th century European history will make reading this work a lot more interesting. Wheen's book is whimsical, eclectic, comprehensive, and humorous, but it presupposes a knowledge of the 19th and 20th century European revolutionary and political history which is rapidly fading from our 21st century minds. This book dwells as much on Marx's family life as on his political life. ----Wheen's work is filled with fascinating anecdotes. It does not explain Karl Marx, but this man was so complicated that no one (including himself) may have ever understood his motivations. He was a family man, deeply devoted to his wife and six children, four of whom died before he did. (The other two who took their own lives!) On the other hand he quarreled with and was hated by scores - if not hundreds - of former friends. Karl Marx was not a likeable man. This book uncovers hundreds of gems about his life that most persons who studied "Marxism" or "Communism" would never stumble on: for example, the moves in a chess game he played in 1867 (he lost!). That he was precocious, to the point of being expelled from Prussia, France, and Belgium - each time by royal order - before he reached 30 years of age. While many are vaguely aware of Marx's friendship with Friedrich Engels, how many know that it began when Marx was 26 and Engels was 23? Or that Engels was one of only 11 persons present at Marx's funeral 37 years later! Wheen has done an excellent job on a very difficult topic!

Rating:
Summary: The political genius interpreted as a pariah
Review: This book is pretty good but I was disapointed because there was not enough on Marx's youth; there was probably about a half chapter on how he acted as a child and as a student. Robert Service's biography on Lenin covered the subject of youth in a grandoise matter; tracing Lenin's roots back a few generations. From what I have heard, Isaah Berlin's biography is the best on Marx; the strong points in this biogrpahy are as follows: Marx's adult social life, the scene in the 19th Century, Engels influence, and MArx's ideas. When I picked this book up I did not think there would be anything to do with Marx's ideas but only details about his life; If you have never read anything on Marx I would say that this book is good b/c Wheen has many excerpts from MArx's life.