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Summary:
Gandhi's nonviolent struggles in South Africa and India had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation, and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. Although accepting of his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence, and, just then, colonialism, Gandhi feared that enthusiasm for his ideas tended to exceed a deeper understanding. He says that he was after truth rooted in devotion to God and attributed the turning points, successes, and challenges in his life to the will of God. His attempts to get closer to this divine power led him to seek purity through simple living, dietary practices (he called himself a fruitarian), celibacy, and ahimsa, a life without violence. It is in this sense that he calls his book The Story of My Experiments with Truth, offering it also as a reference for those who would follow in his footsteps. A reader expecting a complete accounting of his actions, however, will be sorely disappointed.
Although Gandhi presents his episodes chronologically, he happily leaves wide gaps, such as the entire satyagraha struggle in South Africa, for which he refers the reader to another of his books. And writing for his contemporaries, he takes it for granted that the reader is familiar with the major events of his life and of the political milieu of early 20th-century India. For the objective story, try Yogesh Chadha's Gandhi: A Life. For the inner world of a man held as a criminal by the British, a hero by Muslims, and a holy man by Hindus, look no further than these experiments. --Brian Bruya
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Quite interesting to the non-expert
Customer Rating:
Gandhi's autobiography, written in his fifties with great accomplishments yet to come, cannot be read without companion study. He explicitly says significant content was skipped, and one can easily sense that when reading, even without much knowledge of the events. The book is mostly very interesting in its reflections on Gandhi's youth and the years in South Africa where many of his ideas formed and were first tried in practice.
The 1910s and 1920s years in India are less engaging, with more political content and more details oriented toward what was a current, familiar audience. The target audience at the time also knew much more about what was going on, the various places, the concepts, and the people involved. Here is where I would have preferred more background, which instead must be provided for the non-expert by other sources.
Initially I was surprised by the amount of space devoted to diet and other forms of self-denial, such as "lustful" sexual relations. Eventually that made sense as anchors for how Gandhi thought and adhered to moral principles (and tried to define them), not just in sweeping national issues, but highly personal matters. To him, only if you were personally pure, or nearly pure, could you deserve God's full love and support in higher missions.
Gandhi humbly describes his successes and shows no mercy in pointing out his slips. Occasionally he defends himself against enemies or ones who simply disagreed, and it was refreshing, without the whining and partisan attacks of modern politicians. In many cases, Gandhi was quite gracious to his opponents. However, that was not true when calling out racism and other morally objectionable actions that he and others sought to remove, often successfully. Those stories are the highlight of the book.
Gandhi cannot be considered a great writer, assuming the translation is faithful to his style and vocabulary. No singing Lincoln-esque prose here. Pretty straightforward language accessible to average readers, as when he compares religions or ponders racism while Indians practiced the caste system.
The indirect descriptions of the culture in England, South Africa and India were sharp reminders of how much has changed in a hundred years. I could only imagine the smell and filth in scenes of Gandhi's travels and local poverty.
Certainly anyone interested in Gandhi must read the autobiography and not rely on traditional biographies and historical studies.
Experiment with yourself
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I first read this book in its Tamil translation back in my school days for a local competition. I must have been 11-12 years old at that time and had a profound effect on me. This is one of the books that you go back to again and again just trying to make sure that such honesty and truthfulness is possible in life. More than anything else, this book taught me the importance of being true to oneself and to see my actions clearly without strings and criticize and correct. This has not brought me a lot of good but then it has kept me sane in these crazy days. The book itself is not very big and covers about the first 40 years of Gandhi's life. But this basically is the formation period where the man experiments with his tools for the imperialistic fight and wields them wisely to go on to become Mahatma and Father of this nation. If you want to read a book which is brutally honest to its subject, look no further.
This book will tell you what Gandhi thought, not necessarily what you'd want to hear
Customer Rating:
Let me just start by giving a little background about me, so that you can get a better idea where I am coming from.
I read this book first as a child (around 10 yrs) and then I found myself reading it again and again. I have read Gujarati (original) version, so I can't comment on how loyal other translations have been. Also, I am an ardent fan of Gandhi. The more I read, the more I respect this man. And here is the reason - Gandhi did what he - at a given time - thought was closest to truth. Understanding that, is the key to this book.
As many people have pointed out, it is not an autobiography in the strictest sense. It is not even a narrative of history since it stops right in the middle of one of the most important moments 20th century - Indian independence. The book is about what Gandhi thought were important episodes in his life that shaped his mind. That's all this book is about. Every chapter describes an event. Gandhi follows his thought process most candidly and describes what he learned at the end of it.
He narrates what he did as a child and what mistakes he made. A usual child becomes a man with indomitable courage and that transformation is aptly captured (and hidden) within those narratives. Gandhi, being an unassuming man that he was, writes a lot in passive tone. He almost sounds apologetic for hurting British at times. But all that is part of what he really was.
A major shortcoming of the book is that it traverses an epic event and it does so without introducing characters and events properly. I guess it was assumed that people will be more than familiar with all the characters and events described (I think they never thought that a non-Indian would care to read it). If you are looking for history, this is not the book. This book needs to be read in the backdrop of thorough knowledge of Indian history. Gandhi never explains what he did, but goes into greater details of why he did what he did. Again, as pointed out by many many reviewers here, this is no literary masterpiece - so if you are looking for a sleek story, you should shy away from this book.
However, if you are looking for the most brutally honest narrative a person can write about himself, this is the book to go through. Even in late 1920s, Gandhi was a force to reckon with. He was almost elevated to Godhood. I think it takes unbelievable courage to write what he wrote. And that makes this book special. Of course, through out the book he describes his experiments, analyzes results and matches it with his central hypothesis (Truth is God and God is truth).
Overall, this is one of the book that shaped my ideas and philosophy in a major way. Hope it can prove to be a similar experience for someone out there.
Good, Inexpensive Edition
Customer Rating:
If you're like me and like to read straight from the source, this book is a great introduction to Gandhi. Having been published in 1927, his autobiography does not cover his whole life, so it will not give you a complete picture; there are other resources for that. By covering his early life and his personal growth, and how he developed his ideas and opinions, this book gives you great insight to his thoughts and values.
The book is not perfect. It starts out very interesting and highly readable, and the short chapters make it easy to move through. You may stumble over some people and place names, as well as some unfamiliar Indian terms, but it is all very fascinating - for a while. The farther he progresses with his story, however, the more he gets into the minutia of his political activities, meetings, acquaintances, and travels, to the point where you may feel you are still reading only for the sake of finishing the book. It's still worth it, for what few nuggets of gold can be found in those last several pages.
Now, on a practical level, I selected this, the Dover edition, over the Beacon Press edition (Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth) upon looking over both in the bookstore, because the Dover edition is cheaper, has better paper quality, and is in an easier-to-read font (however, Dover books don't smell that great, I've noticed). The Dover cover is kind of blah, and got scuffed up pretty easily, but the inside is really nice. So the deal is, if you DO judge a book by its cover, and want it to look good on your shelf to impress your friends, get the other one. If you intend to actually READ this book, buy the Dover edition.
A life changing book
Customer Rating:
This is easily the most powerful book I have ever read. Gandhi does a great job of telling the story in his life in such a way that not only tells a story, but teaches lessons that go along with it. The title explains a lot, considering that Gandhi considered his entire life to be an expirement with the truth.
He is very open about the mistakes that were made (such as his marraige and bigotry at an incredibly young age) and details how he took those mistakes to make his life as consistently honest as possible. The way he organized people to non-violence in two terrible situations in Africa and India are legendary, but the way he brings it home to the individual is under-rated, to say the least.
Gandhi teaches that it doesn't take an army to learn the truth, nor does it take an army to become a part of that truth. His story explains that an individual dedicated to the empowerment of honesty and love can overcome any violence or hatred that can exist. It is within this context that one can use this book to change themselves.
These ideas used in an individual's every day life will lead to the understanding that love is more powerful than hatred, and honesty more powerful than lies. His examples of these ideas and proof that they are true is the most inspiring part of this book.
Even for those of us not religious (like myself) his use of religion is also motivating. He teaches lessons from religions and explains how to use this understanding as a way to love people of opposite religions rather than fighting them.
I will leave the indivudal stories to Gandhi himself, but his life is something everyone in the world would benefit from knowing.
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