Comment

Jul 05, 2017danielestes rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
A friend once said to me, "You know who's a brilliant writer but you'd never guess? Steve Martin." Turns out she was right. Maybe this isn't a surprise for those in the know. However, it was a pleasant one for me. This book is both highly entertaining and elegantly nuanced. Born Standing Up is Steve Martin's account of his journey from his youth in nostalgic southern California to world famous performer. Specifically, it's all the dreams, goals and unplanned circumstances that guided him towards becoming a stand-out stand-up comedian. As with most other autobiographies, the early chapters are superior, because I'm of the mind that origin stories always are, but Born Standing Up still manages to sustain itself all the way to the present day. The lessons Steve Martin gleans as a nearly burnt out performer later in his career are no less potent that when he's working on his own showman style as a part-time magic shop clerk in Disneyland as a teen. You'll laugh throughout, I guarantee it, but you'll also be moved. A successful comic's life is often tragic, but not always in overt ways. Although there were many to choose from, this is my favorite quote from the whole book: "Despite a lack of natural ability, I did have the one element necessary to all early creativity: naïveté, that fabulous quality that keeps you from knowing just how unsuited you are for what you are about to do."