Review: Making It So, by Patrick Stewart
by
Stuart Holland
I think it’s uncontroversial, and even well known, to say that Patrick Stewart is old. But it wasn’t until I read the early parts of this book that I really appreciated how old. Because he’s from a poor part of England (he’s a Yorkshireman!?), the difference between his childhood life’s society and the world we live in today is even more pronounced. But it really struck me that this is a man who is from before modernity.
I listened to this as an audiobook, which was read, as it should be, by the man himself. Patrick Stewart, also uncontroversially, has a great speaking voice and he does a terrific job with the vocal performance here. A lot of this story is very touching and very personal, and it really does feel like he’s just… telling you about it. For a long time, mind you (18 hours), but then again, there’s a lot to tell.
I wasn’t aware of Patrick Stewart’s difficult relationship with his father, and difficult is definitely a euphemism. He goes into detail of what happened to him, his brother, and his mother at his father’s hand. Not a pleasant tale, but one he doesn’t seem to carry lingering animosity over.
The story of how he went from that small town to working in theater is a great one. And you can see the hands of many people who helped him get there, whom he calls out specifically in thanks many times throughout the book. It’s a heartwarming tale of success, though most certainly not without struggle.
And of course, Star Trek. The Next Generation is where I first saw Patrick Stewart, and the look behind the action that he gives in this book is a lot of fun. And it sounds like (once Stewart himself decided to stop policing the fun) they had a lot of fun making the show as well. The way that he got the part is also one of those great butterfly effect moments. One of the nascent series’s producers saw him perform at a random student lecture that he was doing as a favor to a friend who had given him somewhere to stay. A simple “Oh, I can’t make it that night” and think how so many lives would have spiralled out differently from that moment.
While Patrick Stewart does love the characters he has played in Star Trek and X-Men, I think I can see that it’s the stage and the acting on it that’s the real love for him. He doesn’t look down on the “genre fiction”, but Shakespeare is clearly one of his great inspirers.
As I reflect on this book, I find myself wondering why I’m not scoring it higher. I don’t quite know. There is a lot to like here and a lot to learn. There’s a lot to connect to and a lot to feel. But that starts to get at it - I didn’t feel extremely strongly about this book while reading it. And that does seem to be a big part of what pushes a book over the top, when it makes me really dig into it and feel it in some way.
That’s not necessarily a criticism of it though. I think other people would feel differently about it. I think I’m also not the person who connects to the story about the squirrel at both ends of the book, like he clearly does. For those people, it would be a kind of magical. Certainly, if you know any of Patrick Stewart’s work, you’ll at least find this book interesting. And the audiobook is fantastic because, as I said above, Stewart does a great job reading it.
