The Wild and Crazy Guy

The sixth book on my list in 2008 was *Born Stand­ing Up*, Steve Mar­t­in’s mem­oir. Best-known for his com­e­dy in the sev­en­ties and comedic movies in the eight­ies, by the nineties he allowed his intel­li­gence to eclipse his over-the-top antics for old­er audi­ences with sub­tler tastes. *Born Stand­ing Up* takes us far­ther back. And no, he was­n’t born a poor black child.

I enjoyed Mar­t­in’s novel­la *Shop­girl* (nev­er did see the movie, but it real­ly did­n’t look like it would be as good as the book) and so I went to this mem­oir with high expec­ta­tions. There were no ground­break­ing rev­e­la­tions, no killer insights into the cre­ative mind, no nuggets of wis­dom for achiev­ing Hol­ly­wood success.

*Born Stand­ing Up* suf­fers from its virtues. It reads as an hon­est and per­son­al account with­out exag­ger­a­tion. I think whether I’m aware of it at the time, I expect a celebri­ty mem­oir to soar to great heights or else fall to sor­did depths. The truth rarely, if ever, fits those tidy box­es, which in turn encour­ages the vain to spice their tales up. Mar­t­in’s accounts, by con­trast, seem mun­dane and sur­pris­ing­ly human.

So it was­n’t a roller-coast­er ride and it did­n’t pro­vide a con­crete exam­ple to fol­low (or not) to ensure suc­cess. Instead it was a good book that does not tear its sub­ject down but mat­ter-of-fact­ly shows that he puts his pants on one leg at a time. If it inspires, its because he lives on the same plan­et we do.

All the while I’m left to won­der: why? Why did he write this? Why did I read it? What did I learn from this book or can I at least see what it meant to Mar­tin? The answers are not obvi­ous, so I end up myself won­der­ing why I’m writ­ing a report of it that will only damn with faint praise.