Things I Didnt Know by Robert Hughes

Things I Didnt Know Reviews

• 
  Eric

  Though copies of 'Nothing If Not Critical' and 'The Shock of the New' have made it into the never-to-be-sold core of my collection, I wasn't sure, starting out, that I'd get much out of this memoir (if you're not Proust, Nabokov or Edmund White, your childhood isn't interesting), but by the second chapter I was sold, and it just keeps getting better. The arc is essentially conservative Catholic Sydney in the 1940s-50s to late 1960s London, with an Italian interlude. He's one of the few writers I'd actually want to know in the flesh. Raconteur, skeptic, elitist, erudite voluptuary--in short, a model human.
• 
  Tom Dale

  I give up. I thought his being dead now might inspire a bit of a push to get through to the end but it's not happening. I loved The Fatal Shore but this... no.
  
  It would be an odd autobiography that wasn't self-obsessed but somehow Hughes manages to make it more obviously so than most and to take a clearly interesting family history and turn it into a turgid, whining, bitter drone.
• 
  Sunita Kenny

  Really enjoy this style of memoir, being a loosely grouped collection of short stories based on a theme, a relationship or a particular event (Helen garner's is another that springs to mind). Hughes' observations, on Italian art history as much as growing up in Sydney in the 1950s, make fascinating reading.
• 
  Laurie

  Like "Goya," "Things I Didn't Know" begins with an account of the author's automobile accident, which in this case leads him to review his life up to 1970. He gives an interesting account of his childhood in Australia, criticizing his Jesuit education for its severity, but praising the intellectual curiosity of some of his teachers, who introduced him to modernist poetry and fiction as well as the classics. It's a fine line between love and hate, and Hughes seems to pass from one to the other with such intensity that he can hardly remember having loved something or someone he now hates. This makes for entertaining but sometimes exasperating reading. He is entertaining when he describes things that he still loves, like 14th century Italian art, or certain 20th century Australian painters. He eloquently expresses his indebtedness to his mentor, Alan Moorehead, and his gratitude for the opportunities he received in television and print journalism. Where the memoir can get grating is when he hates or has come to hate something or someone, especially seen in his flaying of his first wife, who is now dead. Through her he condemns the excesses of the sixties, especially zeroing in on sexual promiscuity, muzzy-headed idealism and drug abuse. He casually dismisses particular people with a few cutting adjectives. The effect on this reader, perhaps an unduly perverse one, is to feel great sympathy for those he attacks. What is engaging about Hughes is his great love of history and art, which brought him from Australia in search of the great works of the past and sent him back to her to understand her history. His informal language will put at ease those who are intimidated by highfalutin art history and his gossipy approach will draw people in. I read the book with constant googling of the works he described and the people he pilloried, comparing his impressions to mine. I still retain an affection for the sixties and a gratitude for being given the privilege of visiting Carnaby Street in those times, and participating the welcoming hippie subculture. The drugs have not endured, but what's so bad about peace love and understanding?
• 
  Bruddy

  I first learned of Robert Hughes watching his documentary series American Visions on PBS in the 1990s and was struck by his erudition and articulateness. It wasn’t simply what he was saying about the art and artists he described but the attractively confident way he conveyed his opinions. Things I Didn’t Know, his memoir of growing up in Australia, moving to Europe and eventually arriving in America to become Time magazine’s art critic, contains the same appeal as the documentary. The experiences he describes are enriched by a brilliant prose style, which matches the tone and rhythm of his speaking voice.
  
  Hughes death in 2012 was at least partially due to a horrific car accident he experienced while visiting his native Australia in 1999. It resulted in many broken bones, numerous surgeries and years of slow and incomplete recovery. He describes this event at the start of the memoir and then flashes back to his childhood in Sydney, his Jesuit boarding school education, his early inadvertent start as a cartoonist and critic, and the emerging need to leave Australia, which at the time, simply lacked the art and cultural sophistication he desired.
  
  Beyond the erudition and articulateness, I was also attracted to the independence of Hughes’ thinking. He really can’t be classified as either liberal or conservative, or affixed to any particular group or school of thought. His opinions concerning art and culture are his own, based upon years of reflection and experience. Thus he’s more than willing to declare the emperor has no clothes and to countervail the abiding value (monetary value most of all) the art world placed upon the work of artists Hughes viewed as immensely overrated, such as Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel.
  
  I’ll never have more than a generalist’s interest in art, but was greatly pleased by this memoir tracing the transformation of a curious young Australian into one of the world’s most famous art critics.
  
• 
  Brian

  A view of a life
  
  Hughes achieved considerable acclaim for his work of Australian exposure, The Fatal Shore, but his real renown was earned from making art, art history, and art’s creators and devourers accessible. Here he presents himself and the arc of his assumption of duties at Time Magazine, in an engaging, panoramic view of his life until then, in the early 1970s. Hughes is always readable and ripe with anecdote, as he aptly proves here.
• 
  Jeff Smith

  first chapter was interesting, talking about his accident, second chapter slowly lost me, he was just rambling away, lost in his own world, didn't hold my interest.. sorry
• 
  Bookmarks Magazine

  Noted art critic Robert Hughes has lived a writer's life, and here he relives his dramatic career. Although he relates key events__his car crash, his two unhappy marriages (and a third good one), and his son's suicide__Hughes focuses, instead, on the fascinating informal education that made him "completely an elitist, in the cultural but emphatically not the social sense." Despite his description of himself, a few critics caught a whiff of elitism in Hughes's jabs at other artists and pop culture. Others disagreed about aspects of the prose and storytelling. To some, Hughes's discussion of 1960s London formed the heart of the memoir; the Los Angeles Times, by contrast, called it a "joyless account of druggy self-indulgence." Readers interested in the intellectual growth of an art critic, however, will find much to savor in this memoir

  This is an excerpt from a review published in
  Bookmarks magazine.
• 
  Hope

  Mr. Hughes is a very talented writer with an impressive vocabulary but I urge him stick to historical writing and art reviews. The best parts of this book were those in which he delved into discussions of the art that inspired and formed his career, and the history that shaped his family. The chapters on his childhood were exhausting and almost made me pass on the book altogether. Perhaps this review should be read with a grain of salt though; I am generally skeptical and unimpressed by memoirs. Self-interpretation is hard to separate from reinvention of self, which can change with one's passing moods.
• 
  David Nash

  "Things I Didn't Know" starts with the most exciting chapter of the book, his recent car crash; but then gets bogged down in the details of his early life. The book ends abruptly in 1970 leaving 1970-2006 completely absent.
  
  Tales of his life are interspersed with commentary on art which really just seems to be Hughes sticking to what he knows to meet a word count. Otherwise the writing is excellent and it's mostly an easy read.
  
  I picked up a copy for about $6 (delivered!) on book depository and for that price it's well worth it.
• 
  Bob Speechley

  
  There is lot of interesting information in this book about the early life of Robert Hughes before he became an acclaimed, internationally respected Art critic. His family, schooldays and his early working life before he became established are portrayed in a readable form.
  
  Hughes doesn't hold back on the trials associated with his personal life with his first wife and writes a superb story about his visit to Florence after the disastrous flooding in 1966,on behalf of the BBC. The assistance given to him by fellow Australian is important for Hughes' development as a critic.
  
• 
  Jon Chapman

  It is always a risk with later autobiographies that the writer's abilities begin to wane, and so they never quite live up to the style and quality that we experience of the writer in their prime. Such is the case with 'Things I Didn't Know' - it is patchy, with moments that are moving, funny, insightful and eloquent, and others that are rather flat. Clearly the accident and subsequent legal wrangle that begins the book, and cripples him physically and professionally, had a major impact on his powers. Nevertheless, what remains is well worth the reading.
• 
  Brad

  An interesting individual, brutally honest about himself and his passion for the Visual Arts. While I agree that the book tends to ramble on, and that Hughes doesn't go much beyond 1970, I still found him to be a highly intelligent and intense individual. Certainly, Mr. Hughes was someone you could count on for an interesting conversation.
• 
  John Orman

  Mr. Hughes is a chronicler and historian, but here he turns his critical eye on himself and his world.
  
  I was interested in his stories about his Catholic upbringing, including adventures with Confession and Communion. The story of his recovery from a near-fatal car crash is also very revealing.
  
  A book that shows the value of life, and the value of exploring and celebrating his life.
  
  
• 
  Scott Gilbert

  Wonderful writing, compelling and lucid details as usual from Hughes. He never has the most penetrating insights nor has he lived the most admirable existence, but he presents them in an extraordinary way.
• 
  Tobey

  The beginning is great and the end is really interesting. The middle drags a bit but I did laugh aloud more than once.
• 
  Luca

  A little disappointment, under my expectations...
• 
  Tonette

  I enjoyed all of Hughes' thoughtful stories in these dense and layered pages. A required reading for artists, art-lovers, travelers and adventurers, especially when considering Western culture.
• 
  David

  uneven. Parts are a joy to read, other bits are a lot of score-settling.
• 
  Martha

  I entered this memoir gleefully, entranced by Robert Hughes' masterful "The Fatal Shore". The prospect of spending hours inside his head, experiencing his life and journey, seemed thrilling. Well. Halfway through, I'm still waiting for that connection. As in "Fatal Shore", this book is beautifully written. Hughes is a glorious prose stylist. But boy can he be unpleasant company. Even Hughes acknowledges this: in his own words he describes his boyhood self as an "intellectual prig", in college as a "repugnantly clever young thing", and later as a "filthy elitist". I'd add to that someone bristling with grievance and a quiver full of minor scores to settle. America comes in for many of these -- this country, Hughes' home since 1970, gets trotted out and dosed with condescension and sneering one-liners. Perhaps the second half of the memoir rids itself of sullenness, like a moody teenager finally cleaning up his room and coming onto his own. But I'm too worn out to wait around for it to happen.