For a couple of decades now I have had Milne’s autobiography “It’s Too Late Now” on my want list. Published I think in 1939, it has long been out of print and was never very common in America anyway. I read somewhere that it was wonderful.
I grew up on the Pooh books. My mother had a 1926 edition of each of them, which we loved to have read to us as kids. My sister nicknamed herself “PoOh” and went by that name among her family and close friends right up until her death.
So a couple of months ago when I ran across Ann Waite’s massive (550 page) biography of Milne at Powell’s I brought it home. I’ve been dipping into it ever since.
It’s one of those biographies that starts with the childhood of his grandparents... I quickly found the EXHAUSTIVE treatment to be quite a bit more than I cared to know. I started skimming, skipping ahead to get to the point where Christopher Robin is born and Alan’s Pooh books are published. Those chapters, surprisingly, make up only maybe 10% of the book. After the events I cared about I skimmed the rest of the book to the end.
Discovered Milne’s father was close friends with H.G. Wells. Discovered Alan was quite well off as a child, and fabulously wealthy once his success hit (as a playwright first). Discovered Christopher’s depiction of him as a cold and distant father isn’t really borne out by the facts.
Also picked up a play and a detective novel by him. Found I couldn’t care less about either of them.
Life’s too short to spend time reading stuff you don’t care about.
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