This irritated me beyond all reason. I can't stand the thematic organization, the endless stage of characters I couldn't keep trach of, and the confusion about whether or not this is a biography or a psycho-analysis or a philosophical reflection. There is a staggering amount of research and information present, and many diamonds to find...but you have to swim through an endless sea of peanut butter in order to find them.

I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of O'Donnell's facts, but his presentation was so off-putting that it undermined any pleasure or value this book might have had. Augustine reads like a Hollywood expose: filled with rhetorical questions, winks and nods. A lot of the Great Expert telling us what really happened, even after he admits we have no idea what really happened. You know, the inside "dirt." Maybe O'Donnell felt he had to "jazz up" his subject matter. I don't know.

One shortcoming O'Donnell couldn't overcome: his smirking disbelief of Augustine's beliefs. Such a disconnect immediately puts him at odds with Augustine's message. While a modern reader may not wish a hagiography, one would wish a bit more sympathy for the times and beliefs of those times. Oh, yes, O'Donnell carries on in great detail about who believed what, but it felt like a laboratory dissection rather than something more caring.

For one who has made a career of Augustine's career, you'd expect better.

Having said that, I encourage the potential reader to at least read the last chapters, especially "Augustine the Theologian." There one sees the feel and the value of O'Donnell's approach. It is hard today to have any clear picture of someone who lived 1600 years ago; doubly hard when that person has become a kind of gilded icon to one group of readers, and a demon to another. Augustine, of course, was neither.

Suffered through this one. Not very interesting or great.

The enormous influence this Saint has had on western society.