Happily, we began collaborating again. In it, you learn about a boy from Westwood, New Jersey, who hated carrying an accordion on the bus, and how he came to be someone whose counsel is sought by leaders around the world, including the man who may be the next president of the United States, Al Gore. One of his great strengths as a writer is his near-phobic avoidance of jargon. Whenever you read Warren's work, you are reminded that there is a poet inside, as well as a powerful thinker and perhaps a little standup comic as well. He has a genius for turning personal experience, however bleak, into material that resonates with others.
Autobiographical writing is remarkably tricky, as anyone who tries it soon discovers.
Warren understands the power of stories and knows how to tell unforgettable ones without trying his reader's patience. And there are tributes to some of his mentors, including Douglas McGregor, who pioneered the field of organizational studies and whose death at the age of 58 still saddens Warren. His encyclopedic learning is there, always, including a discussion of Oxford philosopher-historian Isaiah Berlin's distinction between intellectual hedgehogs, who know one big thing, and foxes, who know many things and can't wait to learn new ones. But what makes the essay irresistible are the revealing little stories. And you a get glimpse of Warren's emotional and social education in a delicately rendered little tribute to the person who taught him how to eat an artichoke.