Book Review: "Greenlights" by Matthew McConaughey

At the time of writing, I am in Manchester, spending time shopping and eventually going to an exhibition about Batman. I found this autobiography far later than I thought I would have. After hearing about it for so long, to be honest, it was pretty easy to avoid it since I had no interest in the actor whatsoever. However, on my way to Manchester, I had realised something quite horrid: I had packed my Kindle into my suitcase and therefore, could not get it out to read on the journey.

I was stuck with nothing to read on a train and so, I took to the local WH Smith's store to buy a book that was compelling but not too deep. Having already read and thrown out the book Surrounded by Idiots (which constantly seems to be on offer) the only book I could find of any value was Greenlights. There goes £10 of my money. Let's see the positives and the negatives of a book written by the only guy anyone remembers from The Wolf of Wall Street.

Initially I was cynical about what to expect in this book, but by the time I got underway, I realised I could not stop reading it. McConaughey tells us about his background, his family and how he grew up. These are things I found far removed from my life and yet, were also very interesting. He speaks about how he was initially going to study law but dropped out because he simply did not want to do it and became an actor instead. One thing I found quite interesting is readind about his brothers. McConaughey is the youngest of three brothers and each of the brothers have an entirely different personality to the last.

Reading about a physical fight between the eldest brother and the father was pretty interesting, but there was something more so. The actor explains that these physical fights were somewhat a right of passage into manhood. I'm not sure I am on board with men being encouraged to physically fight people as this seems to be an ever growing problem amogst society - but it was definitely interesting on a philosophical level.

I often enjoyed reading about his early acting roles and how he stayed grounded whilst there were now expectations of him by more people than he could count. However, this did not mean I absolutely loved the book. I did not enjoy the whole sefl-discovery journey he went on mainly because I found it to be pointless. Now, don't get me wrong, I love books like On the Road and The Catcher in the Rye where one has to run away from house and home in order to find themselves.

But in the midst of making a career for yourself and becoming that responsible human being that you said you wanted to be: it sounds a little pointless since it sets you back about five steps. Apart from being incredibly boring to read about, I feel like when the actor returned home and started to do this on the roads of America, it was just an extension of that section and thus, fell into the barrell of being repetitive and overly self-indulgent.

When we deal with the parts which focus on his fame and life as he bcomes more of a well-known actor, we run into many advantages because it is far more interesting than the Kerouac-esque journey of self-discovery, but the problem here is that there is only perhaps one or two paragraphs at most dedicated to his Academy Award for Best Actor. I was quite shocked because I feel that this is something readers would want to read about. I understand that he wants it to be a small part of a larger journey and all that nonsense but I feel that he really did skip out on knowing what the reader would actually like to read about. The ceremony, what is going through his head, his acceptance speech, the after-party etc. all of this stuff just got omitted from the narrative. That was a huge let down for me.

Apart from the fact that this book is interspersed with some of the weirdest Beatnik poetry I have ever read (and I have even read Mexico City Blues), this book is an amalgamation of a man who has clear led an interesting life with perhaps, a man who needed a little more guidance on making the reader actually interested and invested in the story. It's good, but it's not the greatest autobiography I have ever read. It's good, but it is definitely not in the top ten.