Both interesting and annoying. This was the over sweet, incredibly censured, highly pompous, rose tinted spectacles biography of Alan Turing as written by his grief stricken mother in the 1950s. Turing was the mathematical and computer genius at Bletchley Park who broke the Enigma Code which meant German code could be intercepted at the end of the World War Two. This meant the UK government could now work out where German submarines were under the Atlantic Ocean and the UK was able to safely get supplies across from the States. Turing basically stopped the Brits starving at their weakest and poorest point during the War. ( not that Sara Turing wrote about any of this stuff because like everyone she didn't really know what Turing had done during the war. It was all top secret then.)
Anyway Sara goes on about leaving little cute Alan behind at pre-prep school and how he changed during puberty from a cute little genius to a dishevelled, eccentric mathematician at Cambridge. She keeps on about his floppy, messy hair and lack of girl friends and his 'disorganised' life. But she was also a bit of a maths wiz herself so was also able to talk about his first love of solving mathematical problems. I loved this part...getting inside his brain was amazing. Alan could read numbers at two and because he mixed up left from right he organised his own solution by putting a black dot on his left hand to remind him to start counting from that end! What a geek!
She also talks about how he didn't need glasses because all of his thinking was done in his head not on paper. He never seemed to be holding a pen but was always dreamy, with his head in the clouds. Yes, he was a complete eccentric who could have moments of great kindness but mostly spent his time on unfathomable computational mathematics. Yes, he was truely the godfather of computer science.
The tragedy is that his genius went unrecognised. He loved travelling to the States and around Europe but by the early 50s the UK government had banned him from this pursuit due to the highly sensitive knowledge he carried around in his head. I don't think the establishment liked him, nor approved of him but they sure needed him alive.
In 1952 Turing killed himself with an arsenic injected Apple bite. A clever way to die. His mother in the biography thinks it's an accident due to his slovenly behaviour but all of his close friends knew this was suicide. A tragic way for a British legend to die.
The introduction is the best part to this book it talks about Turing's homosexuality and how he really was absolutely OK and happy with his own private life and how it was all the other establishment figures around him and his family who had the problem. In 1949 Turing reported a burglary in his house but the policemen who came seemed more concerned about his personal arrangements with the guy he was with. He wasn't sent to jail but was forced for two years to have estrogen injections. This did nothing to change Turing's sexuality the injections just made him depressed and made him grow breasts. Poor bloke. I found this part of the book really difficult to read.
I also found the end section written by Turing's brother interesting. It's of its time with 1950s stiff upper lip sentiment but is a more honest and open reflection of Alan's life. It was thankfully added after the mother had died.
The brother talks lovingly about Turing's brain power and his great sense of fun but also far too much about his 'base sexuality' and how nobody in the family ever accepted Alan's private world. The mother was always trying to change him and had basically written this memoir because this was how she wanted to remember her son as a super saccharine, snobby , uber-genius. Urghhhh!
But the revelation from the brother that Turing went to many psychiatrists not for his homosexuality but to remove the demons of his complete hatred for his mother, now that was an interesting revelation!!
Alan Turing absolutely hated her. He hated that she abandoned him and that she seemed more interested in what other people thought than the truth and that she was always trying to change him.
What I get from this book is how Alan Turing was born before his time. A genius who was totally comfortable in his own skin who just wanted to be left alone to puzzle out mind blowing problems. If he decided to wear pyjamas all day, eat nothing but lollipops and have a boyfriend over then he was completly at ease with this. In the end though the pressures all got too much. A great British life was tragically taken away at only 41years of age. RIP.
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