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A review by apechild
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
4.0
This isn't the longest autobiography you're ever going to read, but to be fair, she did write it when she was only in her 20s. And even at that point she'd had a pretty amazing life.
Helen Keller was born into a well-off American family in the late 1880s. Whilst still very small, she became very ill and ended up deaf and virtually blind - it says blind on the book, but she must have some very limited vision, as I get the impression she could distinguish light from dark, and that she could also on some occasions lip read. Even so, it put her in a really tough starting point considering she hadn't yet learned to read and write, and had barely got going on talking, which ended up taking a long pause before she could learn to speak again.
In a lot of ways this is just the story of a young woman growing up - she gets up to mischief with her playmates, spends a lot of time studying for fun (I get the impression the family were rich) and goes to college. She doesn't want you to feel sorry for her - she certainly doesn't feel sorry for herself. It's a very honest, frank account of her life, perhaps having a wee axe to grind here and there, in particular when she's justifying herself over this plagarised story. Heck, she was only 10 or 12 at the time. I can't believe she actually went to some kind of court over it!
One person that is fascinating in this book, and whom I did feel sorry for, was Anne Sullivan, Helen's tutor/companion. She originally came to the family as a private tutor to teach Helen sign language, reading - and from that deal with all her everyday education in the usual subjects once the medium of communication was sorted out. She then stays with Helen, being a kind of translator between the rest of the world and Helen, going to colleague and university with her, having to sign all the lessons and books into her hand. This woman gave up her life to help Helen. I read online that she did later get married - but even this was all about Helen, as the three of them lived together before the marriage shortly failed.
She doesn't want you to feel sorry for her, and she says she's led a rich life, with many experiences, which I believe. But it's hard to imagine this and how she experiences the world. And it makes you grateful for your own senses - that I can sit and read a book and listen to music.
Helen Keller was born into a well-off American family in the late 1880s. Whilst still very small, she became very ill and ended up deaf and virtually blind - it says blind on the book, but she must have some very limited vision, as I get the impression she could distinguish light from dark, and that she could also on some occasions lip read. Even so, it put her in a really tough starting point considering she hadn't yet learned to read and write, and had barely got going on talking, which ended up taking a long pause before she could learn to speak again.
In a lot of ways this is just the story of a young woman growing up - she gets up to mischief with her playmates, spends a lot of time studying for fun (I get the impression the family were rich) and goes to college. She doesn't want you to feel sorry for her - she certainly doesn't feel sorry for herself. It's a very honest, frank account of her life, perhaps having a wee axe to grind here and there, in particular when she's justifying herself over this plagarised story. Heck, she was only 10 or 12 at the time. I can't believe she actually went to some kind of court over it!
One person that is fascinating in this book, and whom I did feel sorry for, was Anne Sullivan, Helen's tutor/companion. She originally came to the family as a private tutor to teach Helen sign language, reading - and from that deal with all her everyday education in the usual subjects once the medium of communication was sorted out. She then stays with Helen, being a kind of translator between the rest of the world and Helen, going to colleague and university with her, having to sign all the lessons and books into her hand. This woman gave up her life to help Helen. I read online that she did later get married - but even this was all about Helen, as the three of them lived together before the marriage shortly failed.
She doesn't want you to feel sorry for her, and she says she's led a rich life, with many experiences, which I believe. But it's hard to imagine this and how she experiences the world. And it makes you grateful for your own senses - that I can sit and read a book and listen to music.