The Art of Others' Lives
When I was doing ordering for our literature non-fiction collection some time ago, I was surprised to find it was pretty difficult to find current literary biography. There was the fairly recent Edna St. Vincent Millay bio, but that had been a very popular book and we already had plenty of copies.
It made me think of the relative dearth of even criticism covering major figures of the 20th century, especially from the 50's on -- excepting the deeply canonized Moderns and the popular Beats. Was it a lack of interest, scholarly confidence, a decline -- in biography -- of value placed on the author as opposed to the text? It had always struck me that a cornerstone biography helped make a writer more central to the canon.
I remember several of the literary biographies that I sank into in the past: Michael Holroyd's Lytton Strachey, Dierdre Bair's Samuel Beckett, Gerald Clarke's Capote: A Biography, Richard Ellman's Oscar Wilde. I miss them -- and their like.
A number of years ago, I had thought I would apply to the University of Hawaii to get a master's degree in literary biography. I wondered if I'd have the discipline to take the required numerous notes, keep them organized, marshall them into a cohesive life narrative, tame my writing style to something a little more ... er ... anonymous, transparent, more streamlined -- less purplish and author- rather than subject-centered.
One of the reasons I enjoy LJ as much as I do, though, is that I am fascinated by people -- their choices, their stories, their trajectories, their passions, their philosophies, their visions, their characters, their idiosyncrasies. I hold my own similarities and differences alongside them and truly appreciate both. I look for models for my own growth, for creative, intellectual, and caring paths others make as they go. I think of how each small choice I make colors my own life and then marvel at how an equally seemingly small and different choice in another's can make a subtle and integral difference in a whole person's story or character. It is a difference similar to that of a word choice or placement in poetry, a single ingredient in cooking; dramatic specificity is in the little details.
Today, I am thinking I would very much enjoy the discipline involved in observing a life, discovering thematic narratives, appreciating exactly where I know it is due. Maybe Hawaii is in my future. Maybe I could do my bit to dive into George Oppen or Derek Jarman or Lorraine Niedecker or Charles Olson, say, to keep their lives from going historically flat because of the exhaustion of curiosity, empathy, attention, and appreciation.
In the meantime, at least, I will practice by continuing to lay my eye and ear to the amazing stories we here are all making of -- as Michael Cunningham and Virginia Woolf put it -- our hours.
It made me think of the relative dearth of even criticism covering major figures of the 20th century, especially from the 50's on -- excepting the deeply canonized Moderns and the popular Beats. Was it a lack of interest, scholarly confidence, a decline -- in biography -- of value placed on the author as opposed to the text? It had always struck me that a cornerstone biography helped make a writer more central to the canon.
I remember several of the literary biographies that I sank into in the past: Michael Holroyd's Lytton Strachey, Dierdre Bair's Samuel Beckett, Gerald Clarke's Capote: A Biography, Richard Ellman's Oscar Wilde. I miss them -- and their like.
A number of years ago, I had thought I would apply to the University of Hawaii to get a master's degree in literary biography. I wondered if I'd have the discipline to take the required numerous notes, keep them organized, marshall them into a cohesive life narrative, tame my writing style to something a little more ... er ... anonymous, transparent, more streamlined -- less purplish and author- rather than subject-centered.
One of the reasons I enjoy LJ as much as I do, though, is that I am fascinated by people -- their choices, their stories, their trajectories, their passions, their philosophies, their visions, their characters, their idiosyncrasies. I hold my own similarities and differences alongside them and truly appreciate both. I look for models for my own growth, for creative, intellectual, and caring paths others make as they go. I think of how each small choice I make colors my own life and then marvel at how an equally seemingly small and different choice in another's can make a subtle and integral difference in a whole person's story or character. It is a difference similar to that of a word choice or placement in poetry, a single ingredient in cooking; dramatic specificity is in the little details.
Today, I am thinking I would very much enjoy the discipline involved in observing a life, discovering thematic narratives, appreciating exactly where I know it is due. Maybe Hawaii is in my future. Maybe I could do my bit to dive into George Oppen or Derek Jarman or Lorraine Niedecker or Charles Olson, say, to keep their lives from going historically flat because of the exhaustion of curiosity, empathy, attention, and appreciation.
In the meantime, at least, I will practice by continuing to lay my eye and ear to the amazing stories we here are all making of -- as Michael Cunningham and Virginia Woolf put it -- our hours.