Growing Up---Russell Baker

Russell Baker’s Growing Up

Baker received his second Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for his autobiography, Growing Up (1983). With a moving mix of humor and sadness, Baker insightfully recounts the struggles he and his mother endured in depression-era Virginia, New Jersey, and Baltimore after his father passed away. The book’s greatest achievement is Baker’s portrayal of his mother, a driven woman haunted by poverty and dreams of her son’s success. “I would make something of myself,” he wrote, “and if I lacked the grit to do it, well then she would make me make something of myself.” Mary Lee Settle of the Los Angeles Times Book Review called Growing Up, “a wondrous book, funny, sad, and strong … (with scenes) as funny and touching as Mark Twain’s.” Jonathan Yardley of Washington Post Book World declared that “Baker has accomplished the memoirists’ task: to find shape and meaning in his own life, and to make it interesting and pertinent to the reader. In lovely, haunting prose, he has told a story that is deeply in the American grain.”

In the 1920’s America was presented with some challenging times. Her people were faced with tremendous economic hardships. Life for the typical American family could be described as anything but easy. This hardship produced a sense of uncertainty about the future. With this uncertainty American’s had nothing but their faith, hopes, and dreams to live off of. As illustrated in Russell Baker’s book, Growing up, American’s felt the extreme drive to “Make Something” of themselves. In a way it was out of pure hope to have a better life. In the book Russell’s mother Lucy Elizabeth can be found saying this repeatedly. For a woman such as Lucy, the only hope of success she had was through that success that her son was capable of. Russell’s story is like that of most American’s. Through his description of life in the Great Depression, one can only read on and hope that he eventually does make something of himself. Most American’s had

Growing up is about Russell Baker’s childhood into adulthood. It starts out with his mother’s flashbacks but soon goes to his childhood. His childhood starts by talking about the resentment between his mother and her mother-in-law, his grandmother. Then he goes on to talk about the death of his father from diabetes, which prompts his mother and his sister Doris to move in with his mothers brother. He has a younger sister named Audrey but she is adopted by Aunt Goldie and her husband and raised by them. While living in Newark he discusses the trials and tribulations of living during the Great Depression and how the family comes together to survive. Also, while in Newark, their baby sister Audrey comes to visit. At first Doris is put off by her beauty but eventually the two become life-long friends. Later, the family moves to Baltimore, where the mother supports the children on her own, while Russell grows to want independence from his mother and enjoys making her intelligence seem inferior to his own. His mother while in Baltimore marries a man named Herb and they buy a house during Russell’s senior year. They also have a daughter named Mary Leslie. Russell then gets a scholarship to go John Hopkins College to become educated enough to write. A year into college he enlists with the navy and learns to become a pilot. During this time he is trying to expand his sexual horizons with no prevail. Finally he meets Mimi, who by his mothers definition is not a “good woman”. At first he refuses to marry her but after he makes $80 a week at his newspaper, he agrees to marry her. The book ends with him visiting his mother and her not remembering who he is.

(629 words)

Word tips autobiography n. 自传

portrayal n. 描画, 描写

haunt v. 神鬼出没

grit n. 粗砂

wondrous adj. 令人惊奇的, 非常的

memoirist n. 传记,回忆录,追思录

pertinent adj. 有关的, 相干的, 中肯的

flashback n. 急转, 闪回, 倒叙

diabete n. [医] 糖尿病, 多尿症

tribulation n. 苦难, 忧患, 磨难