After twenty-four weeks of being on the library waitlist for this book, I’ve finally checked out and read Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. You read that right, I patiently waited twenty-four weeks (I’m just now realizing that’s an entire SIX MONTHS) instead of going out and buying the book myself. That’s how dedicated I am to my local library, or how cheap I am. Either way, the suspense was high.
Originally I didn’t intend to write a review of Greenlights as I was reading it purely for personal pleasure. I have a thing for memoirs. I also have a thing for beautiful people. I anticipated this would be a guilty pleasure read, as I find most celebrity-authored books are. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I held in my hands a good book. What makes a book a good book?
There are a lot of books that have made a difference in my life, and most of those differences are pretty small. It’s starting off every road trip with the perfect song after reading about the tunnel scene in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It’s trying my best to exercise compassion when I can after reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Sometimes it’s kind of silly, like attempting to walk quieter than a whisper like Mia in The Nevernight Chronicles. To me, a good book is something that impacts your life in some way, shape or form. There are a lot of good books in the world then, right? Better get reading.
A good book is not a book that completely changes your life. I’ve no doubt such books exist, but they are not good books. Those would probably be great books. Be wary of anyone who hands you a book claiming that, “This book will change your life”. It probably won’t, and odds are anyone who tells you it will is trying to sell you something. If they say, “This book changed MY life,” they’re probably not trying to sell you anything, but they might not read very much. Or, it’s actually a great book and you should read it immediately.
On the very first page of Greenlights, McConaughey says, “This is not an advice book… This is an approach book.” Alright, count me in. As I said, I don’t like books that claim to change your life or people who push books by telling you they’ll do so. McConaughey has shunned the idea and is taking no responsibility for your life whatsoever. If you wish to adopt some of his philosophies and strategies, you may, and if not, it’s still a fun read. I dig it.
From the beginning McConaughey brings a strong presence. It’s a known fact that a lot of celebrity books are penned by other people, or ghostwritten. I have nothing against ghostwriting, especially since it can provide jobs for great writers who don’t want to be in the spotlight. Still, it was nice to tell from the get-go that McConaughey wrote this book himself. It’s his voice through and through, and if you choose the audiobook version, he literally reads it to you. How great is that?
Of all the things I liked about his book, this is what I liked the most. As writers, we strive to have a unique voice. This takes time, a lot of writing, and most importantly: knowing who we are. The last one is where a lot of people get stuck, but how can you know what your voice is supposed to sound like if you don’t know the person behind it? McConaughey is at a point in his life where he knows who he is as a person, and this is evident through his writing.
Some may read McConaughey’s voice as pretentious at times. I can understand this point of view, but I would disagree. His is the voice of someone who has enough experience to know who they are, and is comfortable enough to admit there are times when he’s been lost. A lot of his memoir centers around trying to find himself, and later understanding that life is a journey and we are forever growing. Who we are today may not be who we are tomorrow, but that doesn’t matter as long as we like who we are on both days. I don’t see him as pretentious, or condescending, or as a rich man trying to discover himself through fame and money. I read him as someone who has gone through a lot to become who they are today and is very attuned with himself because of it.
I loved reading this memoir and knowing he wasn’t pandering to any crowd, he wasn’t trying to put on a show for his fans, he was just taking us through the stories of his life. He showed us the events he believes made him who he is, and that’s fascinating to me. It’s my favorite part of memoirs in general because people are always showing us what events THEY think made them who they are, and that doesn’t always correspond to the events we might assume. Objectively, we can look back at someone’s rise to success and see which events lead them in the right direction, but knowing their thought process behind making those decisions is another level of cool.
McConaughey shows us some badass moments where he made calls other people might not have made. These are the parts of the memoir when we’re reminded, “oh right, this isn’t any old person, this is Matthew McConaughey”. Not everyone would choose to travel to both South America and Africa solely because of a wet dream. Nor are most of us the kind of person who would lose over forty pounds to play an HIV positive character in a movie before confirming the budget for the movie itself. No, that’s not most people. That’s Matthew McConaughey.
I’m not counting those as spoilers, by the way. There’s so much happening in McConaughey’s book that you won’t mind if I let a few details slip. Plus, he’s probably talked about them in one interview or another already. The guy’s famous as hell.
There are moments in the novel, however, that remind us McConaughey is a mere human being, even if he was born with a preternatural coolness the rest of us live without. He details his transition from working class to famous as well as the toll it took on him mentally and spiritually. It’s not hard to lose yourself in the fray when everything around you is rapidly changing, and I think the steps he took to stay grounded will speak to most people. In his own words, his stories sound neither superfluous nor grandiose. They’re his experiences as he lived them, nothing more and nothing less.
My biggest take away from the book is this: you can want something, but you better not need it. As soon as you start needing something, you’ve already begun to lose it. I’m not talking about the necessities. We need food, water, shelter, and to pay the bills. Those are the things in life we will always need, but when we start needing things we don’t need, we’re in trouble. Don’t ever put yourself in a position where you need something so badly it will crush you if you don’t have it. Keep yourself in the position where you want something badly enough to work for it, but if you don’t get it you’ll just work harder at the next thing. It’s a good lesson to keep in mind. Wanting is great, it gives you something to work for, but needing will only hold you back.
As I said, this book didn’t completely change my life, but there will be moments in my future where I stop and think about whether something is a red light, and if so, do I need to change direction, or do I need to make it a greenlight? Only time will tell.
Greenlights is a good book. Read it!
The Lit Wiz