The Pursuit of Happyness
by Chris Gardner
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Book Reviews of The Pursuit of Happyness
Book Review: Engaging
Summary: 5 Stars
Once I commenced reading this book, I couldn't put it down and finished it very quickly. This book was extremely engaging. Chris Gardner is inspirational because he overcame many hurdles to become a success, personally and professionally. Chris endured many bad childhood experiences including physical abuse by his brutish step father, rape by a stranger, racism and poverty. The result of all this was a person with low self-esteem and self hate issues due to the absence of a father and complexion issues. He tried cocaine, petty crime, was addicted to sex, was a womanizer, smoked cigarettes, smoked weed and had dysfunctional relationships with women. Through it all he always had a glint of self-belief and his mother, though a victim of domestic violence, continued to encourage him. While pursuing his dream of becoming a stockbroker he suffered through financial troubles and homelessness. He made it though all this and eventually started his own firm, met Nelson Mandela and invested in South Africa. This is a story of triumph and is very inspiring. The book was well-written as the descriptions allowed me to visualise and be present in the scenes. At times I felt sorry for him and sometimes I hated him. The book brought out all the emotions. The bottom line of this book is that regardless of the circumstances, the human spirit can triumph and overcome anything.Book Review: Satisfying story, though not much like the movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Successful and wealthy businessman Chris Gardner truly knows what it means to achieve -- it was only through hard work and good luck that he managed to escape a lifetime of poverty and hopelessness.
As a child, Gardner grew up fatherless and poor, experiencing physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a stepfather who almost killed his mother on numerous occasions. Gardner and his sisters spent several years in foster care, and life was often bleak. But, thanks to the Navy, he was able to escape his inner-city existence and begin a promising medical career.
Just as things were beginning to look promising, a series of small misfortunes all piled up together, and Gardner -- along with his toddler son -- became homeless.
Despite the enormity of the task at hand, he managed to make the best of his circumstances, even with a large amount of humility and humor.
If you're like me, however, and decided to read the book after seeing the movie, you may be a bit startled. While the 2006 movie focuses mainly upon Gardner's homelessness and struggle within the world of stocks, that portion of his life -- however poignant and powerful -- is but a small section of the book.
Overall, this memoir is engaging and memorable, a true journey from rock bottom to success.
Book Review: Inspiration and Perspiration
Summary: 5 Stars
The Chris Gardner story first came to my attention by an article in the December 2006 "Reader's Digest" magazine - a brief description of his tenacious climb to success. After reading the book, I can see why it was made into a movie.
Born to a working-class mother in the `50s, later sharing the house with an abusive step-father, Mr. Gardner recalls his childhood and the past decades in vivid detail. And what an impressive story he has to tell! The odds were so totally against any bit of his success, but as a warrior of life, he persevered until clearing every obstacle out of his path, while single-handedly raising two, also finely turned-out children and retaining a sense and knowledge of internal success which includes the current pursuit of happiness for others by his many philanthropy endeavors.
Sometimes using raw language and containing a few graphic sexual scenes, "The Pursuit of Happyness" is, nevertheless, exceptionally candid, real, eloquently honest, and sometimes painfully poignant. Some parts are incredibly humorous too. (The tale of "IT" at the EST meeting gave me new meaning to LOL while reading a book.)
The book or the movie? I'll take the book for the background, thoughts, feelings and extras a movie can never reveal - every time.
Book Review: Stunned, a read without overpowering over-emotion
Summary: 5 Stars
Having read a few stories about truly horrific childhoods and their aftermath, this one stood out. This is really about someone who is more than a product of his upbringing, it is someone who realised that beyond all else he was responsible for his destiny. It is almost like he wanted more challenges sometimes to prove that he COULD overcome anything.
As a child he experienced deprivation from his ex-convict mother and step=father who clearly loathed him. He escaped when he could into the Navy, but clearly while he was driven to succeed, he was still driven to fail and made some clearly self-destructive choices. Maybe this is a product of being male, but his smoking Marijuana, and having a child out of wedlock cannot have helped him along.
However, in truly inspirational form, he overcame these, with his son, and has proved that no matter what the odds - whether obstructions from outside or internal, he does have the will to overcome them - and this is the truly inspirational part of this story. Is that he is prepared to take responsibilty for his own faults, and work past everything else.
It is a well written biography, with some sobering messages. I see there is a movie coming out of this book and I am interested to watch it having read this.
Book Review: Crazy
Summary: 4 Stars
Chris Gardner says in the Acknowledgments, "Quincy Troupe [co-author] once paid me a backhand compliment by telling me that I was as crazy as his previous subject, Miles Davis. I'll definitely take that as a compliment!" Gardner's imaginings, that he could possibly become anything other than a replica of the hardworking poor men who enveloped his childhood, define him as crazy. His success is crazy. How he managed it defies sanity.
Gardner imagined a future bright enough to deflect the piercing influences of his childhood--violence, an alcoholic stepfather, a jailed mother, rape--and was able to grow up to be a man possessing little, if any, humility (refreshingly different than most memoirs). Good for him. That Gardner was once homeless and is now wealthy is interesting; that he had no reason to expect to succeed but succeeded anyway, is inspiring.
I should be so crazy.
Note: The movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" deals only with Gardner after he has lived in San Francisco for a while. My only complaint with the movie is its depiction of Gardner's wife. She is shown as an uneducated woman only capable of working in restaurants; she's actually quite educated, a dental school graduate who is waiting to sit for her dental boards. Tsk, tsk.