Mr. Aldrin is, here, fascinatingly and charmingly open about his extraordinarily eccentric and dysfunctional life. This is a man who has literally and figuratively reached the pinnacle of what life has to offer any human. And yet, as Mr. Aldrin explains in this admirable memoir, it was the act of achieving so much, so early, that made what came after so difficult for him. Where does one go after, at the age of 29, being only the second human to ever step foot onto the moon? For Aldrin, it was alcoholism, depression, and, it would seem, a succession of women and business schemes, many of which collapsed in the face of his frequent binges. For all the difficulties Mr. Aldrin has suffered, for all the despair and loneliness and displacement that has plagued him, he has fought through, to live on, to grow, to love, and to develop new ideas for colonizing the solar system, ideas, he argues, that should be given much more heed by NASA than they are.
There is no shortage of self-important people writing self-important memoirs and, in some small way, Mr. Aldrin is a contributer to this unpleasant flood. But on the whole, Magnificent Desolation is a wonderful book for one reason, his candor concerning his own missteps which, at times, is almost painfully harsh. It's precisely this critical self-assessment that keeps us, and probably those around Mr. Aldrin, from writing him off. It's a brave thing to make yourself this naked to the world, all your warts and faults. Anyone willing to be so honest in the name of helping others who might be experiencing similar difficulties deserves our respect. (4/5 Stars)
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