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A review by maggie_sotos
The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy by Peter Conradi, Mark Logue
3.0
A well-researched and documented story, this fills in many of the gaps surrounding Lionel Logue and his background as a speech pathologist. I was hesitant at first when I realized this book is by the grandson of the famous man, fearing this would be one of those "moon reflecting the light of the sun" types of set ups.
Glad I stuck it out! This definitely gave me a greater appreciation for the work and preparation that this team put into curing the Duke's speech impediment. I great story of support, encouragement, and triumph.
Now, is the title hyperbolic and overblown? Yes. Logue did not "save" the British Monarchy, by any stretch of the imagination. The monarchy would have continued whether or not its ruler had a stutter or not. And in fact I found the last few pages of the book to be the most thought-provoking, as the author finally addressed the troublesome fact that, by editing each of the king's speeches beforehand and removing the toughest words, Logue never in fact completely "cured" the monarch of his stutter. As a millennial who has been bombarded with enough of this nonsense about "participation trophies" and "expecting everything to be done for them," I felt a little annoyed to learn that after all of this praise and legend about the king conquering his own speech impediment, it turns out his speech therapist was actually taking the hardest words out of all of his speeches for him. That felt like cheating, somehow, or at least a diluted victory. Sorry, but at some point you just call bullshit on that. You're not cured of something if you're just removing the most challenging levels of obstruction.
Glad I stuck it out! This definitely gave me a greater appreciation for the work and preparation that this team put into curing the Duke's speech impediment. I great story of support, encouragement, and triumph.
Now, is the title hyperbolic and overblown? Yes. Logue did not "save" the British Monarchy, by any stretch of the imagination. The monarchy would have continued whether or not its ruler had a stutter or not. And in fact I found the last few pages of the book to be the most thought-provoking, as the author finally addressed the troublesome fact that, by editing each of the king's speeches beforehand and removing the toughest words, Logue never in fact completely "cured" the monarch of his stutter. As a millennial who has been bombarded with enough of this nonsense about "participation trophies" and "expecting everything to be done for them," I felt a little annoyed to learn that after all of this praise and legend about the king conquering his own speech impediment, it turns out his speech therapist was actually taking the hardest words out of all of his speeches for him. That felt like cheating, somehow, or at least a diluted victory. Sorry, but at some point you just call bullshit on that. You're not cured of something if you're just removing the most challenging levels of obstruction.