I read two volumes of Bertrand Russell’s autobiography. I was initially only interested in his childhood and education. His childhood contrasts so much with Mill’s (whom I read last month) that any hopes of finding patterns were gone, but the writing was fun and funny, so I kept reading.
A major tragicomic pattern is that the simplest things (falling in love, caring for children, spending time in nature, recovering from disease) make him happy, but intellectual pursuits (math, philosophy, political activism) obviously make him miserable, and he himself is oblivious to the pattern for a long while. For example, he enjoyed spending time in the countryside with his sons and decided to research education and open an experimental school. Since experimental schools attract parents with troubled children, it ended up being a disaster for him and the sons.
The other impression is his generation’s attitude towards communism, well known but still hard to grasp. Russell was harshly criticized by his friends (and his partner) for the 1921 anti-Bolshevik book in which he compares Lenin’s government to the tsarist regime and the British Raj. I think a 1921 Russian peasant would do anything to end up in either of the two. With remarkable foresight, he also praised the Bolsheviks for “the care devoted to the upkeep of churches”. Only in his 1950s texts is there a clear “this is even worse than capitalism” sentiment.
Compared to Mill’s autobiography, there’s little emphasis on intellectual development (Mill will let you know when he first read each of the twenty-plus Greek texts he mentions), but a lot more adventure: Cambridge, Russia, China, America, so you’ll probably enjoy it even if you don’t care about the author that much.