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Title: Didacticism at its finest
Review: Benji Franklin is a fascinating guy. He really is. Unfortunately, you really don't get to know him through his autobiography (it was written for the moral instruction of his son, first of all).Half the book reads like a "Mrs. Manners" column and the other half reads like a resume. Franklin lists all his numerous contributions to American society fairly coldly and not a little pretentiously (but we can allow him the pretention) and fills in the blank spaces with moral and philosphical instruction. ]While he was a great inventor and statesman and had a knack for collecting and spitting out trite "truisms," Benny just isn't that interesting a moral philospher. If you're really interested in getting to know Ben Franklin, check out a scholar's biography--if anything, you get to learn all the juicy stuff about his disgustingly promiscuous sex life.
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