Quest Book Review-Tuesdays with Morrie

“The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast. The subject was The Meaning of Life. It was taught from experience.” Thus begins, and ends Tuesdays with Morrie. Twenty six chapters, a conclusion and an afterward this 199 page book is the “final thesis” of those Tuesday classes with Morrie.

The story is one of a student and a teacher: the professor named Morrie, and his student Mitch Albom. Perhaps even more importantly, Tuesdays with Morrie is the story of two friends. Mitch Albom becomes friends with a sociology professor named Morrie Schwartz, taking numerous classes from him and even, at Morrie’s encouragement, writing an honors thesis. After graduation Mitch loses touch with Morrie. One night, he sees Morrie on “Nightline,” and learns that Morrie has ALS. Mitch, mostly out of guilt, decides to contact Morrie before he dies. Tuesdays with Morrie is the result of this decision. Mitch unwittingly enrolls in “A Professors Final Course: His Own Death.” In reading his book we, too, become students.

To narrow Tuesdays with Morrie to a single theme would shortchange the book and Morrie himself. The book’s encompassing nature is a strength. In Morrie’s wisdom, however, we do find dominant motifs:
1. Paradoxically, the meaning of life is clearer through deaths magnifying lens.
Tuesdays with Morrie is sometimes filed under the death and grieving section of the bookstore. It is certainly a comfort for the grieving and has a fresh view of death. However, I contest that the book is not about death, but rather, life.
2. Those things which are important in life are: compassion, learning, peace and, above all, love.
Love is a required material for this life course. Repeated constantly throughout the book is W.H. Auden’s quote: “Love each other or perish.” It is Morrie’s mantra. The beautiful irony is that as Morrie perishes physically, he is concerned with emotional life. A loveless spirit, though in a breathing body is dead. To the ambiguous question “Which side wins?” Morrie's answer is “Love wins. Love always wins.”

Tuesdays with Morrie finds strength in simplicity. The book is not simplistic, but presents brilliant ideas in a clear, honest way. Through it we come to know, and love, a brilliant man. Morrie’s effectiveness as a professor lies, not within his lectures, but in his own identity. Morrie loves as firmly as he believes in love. Here is his credibility: Morrie tried to live everything he taught. When asked what he misses the most about Morrie, Mitch says “I miss that belief in humanity.”

Mitch Albom manages to tell two stories in one book: Morrie’s, and his own. Woven among the syllabus and the lessons are two chapters: “The Student,” and “The Teacher.” Through these we learn not only who Morrie Schwartz is, but why he’s this way. Morrie's personal life is suprisingly difficult. We also watch Mitch, earlier on the path, becoming.

Limitations lie, not in the book, but within ourselves. We are hindered by our own inability to focus on and absorb so much emotion at once. It is our own discomfort with feelings, the same discomfort we see in Mitch, which can potentially hold us back. Morrie’s so called “touchy feely” nature, however, is a strength. Morrie is beautiful, nothing more than himself: honest and open. In this sense, Tuesdays with Morrie is above criticism.

Tuesdays with Morrie is for everyone: the grieving, lifeless souls, students, teachers, the lonely, the confused, the busy, the lifeless, the foolish, the wise, the happy and the unhappy. Its concepts are universal, though we may see different lessons within it at different points in our lives. The old and the young can gain from Morrie’s wake up call. Regardless of who we are Tuesdays with Morrie touches our hearts.

Citation

Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie. New York: Broadway Books, 1997.