Morrie by Mitch Albom Mitch

¶ … Morrie by Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom's biographical novel Tuesday's with Morrie tells the very interesting and touching story of how the author, Mitch Albom, reconnected with his former sociology professor at Brandeis University Morrie Schwartz. The book is just as much about Mitch Albom as it is about his teacher, and really the book is about re-discovering -- or perhaps establishing for the first time -- exactly what is important about life. Albom comes across as a an idealistic, compassionate, and eager college student in the passages of the book that concern his time at Brandeis and the close relationship he formed with Professor Schwartz there. Somethings changed, however, in the years following his graduation, and he became very focused on earning money and a name for himself as journalist. In this way, Tuesday's with Morrie shows the ironic failures of humanity that can be caused by the attainment of material wealth.

Even more ironically, this book quickly became the bestselling emoir of its time, and earned both Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz a great deal of money. In fact, the book reveals that one of the reasons Albom finally contacted Morrie Schwartz with the proposal for this book sixteen years after promising -- and failing -- to keep in touch with his professor was to help Morrie pay his rising medical bills. Albom rediscovered Morrie on Nightline talking about his struggle with ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, and was unable to keep up with the bills in his dying years. Albom's attempt to reconnect with his professor represented the last chance he would have to again get to know the man that was so inspirational to him in his college days. It also represented a chance for him to help and friend, and in this way it had the unexpected result of reconnecting Albom to the world of human caring and compassion that, though he had not totally left, was certainly less of a focus in his life than it had been in college.

The book is set up as a series of lessons, each one occurring on one of Mitch's visits to his newly reinstated mentor. Morrie Schwartz's "lectures," however, are not like traditional college lectures. Instead, they take the form of discussions between the two characters on the important lessons of life, with the two men learning from each other. Mostly, however, the book details how Albom reconnects both with his mentor and with his former idealism. The ways in which this occurs are varied; for the most part, Mitch and Morrie's discussions of various world events and philosophies regarding life and death lead to a deeper understanding of humanity in both men's minds, and especially in Albom's. One of the most profound yet simple points that occurs during the book is when Mitch asks Morrie how one can prepare to die. Morrie basically reverses the question with the Buddhist notion of an individual living each day with the awareness that it truly could be their last. In this way, it could be stated that no one can be prepared to truly live until they have discovered and perfected a way to be prepared to die.