The Man Time Forgot

I have to say, this was one of the most captivating books I have yet to read.  I realize that having read an unrespectable finite number of books this may not mean much, but alas it was also a NY Times Best Seller.

 

The story is of Briton Hadden, the lesser-known founder of Time Magazine (Time Inc.).  His partner, Henry Luce, lived much longer than Hadden and apparently made a concerted effort to take credit as the founder of Time.  Hadden is cast as an energetic, youthful, fun-loving, brilliant journalist who changed the style of American journalism forever.  Everyone who met Hadden loved to be around him.  He was always joking, pulling pranks, and was the center of attention everywhere he went.  It was his childhood dream to create a news magazine that would summarize the news every week in a clear, concise collection of stories and articles that told a tale of people and events like never before.  Even as a young school kid he talked about a weekly news magazine that could be folded twice and would fit in a shirt pocket.  Hadden was a brilliant writer even as a child.  He would become the editor for the Yale paper and be elected most likely to succeed by his classmates.

 

He followed through with his dream, and chose Henry Luce to start the company with him.  Luce was his friend and most competitive rival throughout his days at Hotchkiss and Yale.  Hadden always bested him and Luce often seemed quietly bitter about it - though he loved Hadden as a friend.  However, apparently Luce's unyielding competitive drive and determination to be successful would never allow him to treat Hadden like a true friend.  Twice while Hadden was alive Luce had betrayed him to advance his own agenda.

 

Hadden died at the age of 30, only a few years after starting Time.  He had become a millionaire the same year and Time was well on its way to national prominence.  Though visibly torn up by Hadden's death, Luce rarely ever spoke a word of Hadden for the rest of his life.  Luce was a brilliant business man and carried Time to where it is now as well as founding other successful magazine ventures like Life, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.  But Luce never really spoke of Hadden as the creator of Time. He never mentioned that Time was Hadden's idea originally and suppressed the fact that Hadden was the early genius behind Time and wove its early success.  Without Hadden, Luce would have never experienced life the way he did.  Hadden catapulted Luce into stardom, died at 30, and Luce never looked back.

 

I found the book to be sad towards the end.  It was hard not to love Hadden throughout the book.  He befriended the outcasts, took in stray animals, and was the life of every party.  To read about him laying on his deathbed, helpless, but still making jokes about it left me sort of empty.  I wanted it to somehow end with Hadden realizing the success of his dream and be quietly satisfied that he accomplished his life's dream.  Instead he died wanting much more out of life and left Henry Luce to steal his dream and take credit for it all.