2008: Année Biographique

Well, what do you know? It's a blog.

I hope everyone had fantastic holidays; I definitely did. Lots of good times with family, friends, and friends of such long standing that they may as well be family. 2007 was a crazy year! We went to Switzerland, bought a home, I settled down in my job, ventured (OK, was nudged) into new and different writing challenges, started a big creative project of my own, and witnessed similar life markers in the lives of my friends. And now, for the new year, a couple of my resolutions combine to create a new reading project.

As much as I fell down on the job during many of the busy months of 2007 with my poetry-memorization project, I got a lot out of it during the months when I was doing it, and I enjoyed having a monthly challenge and impetus to spend time with a form that I otherwise tend to neglect. For 2008, that form will be biography, something of which I've been meaning to read more for a long time now. I have had mixed experiences reading biographies; it can deepen and inflect my appreciation of a person, and it can also tear idols down from their tenuous pedestals. For a long time I avoided reading them, for fear of "ruining" my favorite artists by finding out about their less admirable characteristics. But I feel like I have reached a point of acceptance and even appreciation of human fallibility, and my desire to be knowledgeable about historical ways of life, especially with regard to historical women, is also increasing. Plus, I am interested in a lot of the difficulties that biography presents: how to deal with one's personal bias for or against the subject; where the boundaries of "subject" reside and how much atmospheric content or background to include; which aspects of the subject's life to emphasize, if any; the relationship between biography and autobiography, the changing significance of actions and opinions with the passage of years; capturing human changeability and complexity in a static, printed form; group "biographies" and how the portraits therein differ from a traditional, single-subject biography; cultural differences between subject and reviewer, and how they are acknowleged. I'm looking forward to exploring all of these themes in more detail, and I think I have a good beginning lineup to start tackling them.

January's selection is easing me into the genre with Kathryn Hughes' The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton, a portrait of the married couple behind that blockbuster Victorian book of cookery and manners, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. Imagine a Victorian version of Betty Crocker, with the crucial difference that Isabella Beeton was a real person, and you have some idea. In terms of the art of biography this is an interesting place to start, because it is really more of a portrait of a book, an examination of the book's origins, assumptions, target market and lasting implications, than anything else. The life stories of Sam and Isabella Beeton are very much present, but almost tangential to the discussion of Management, as the Beetons called their thousand-page tome. It seems fitting to me to begin my time with biography books with a book that is essentially a biography of a book.

But more on the Beetons later, when I have followed them through their rise and fall. I actually have the entire year plotted out already, and I'm excited about the interplay that may happen amongst the biographies on the docket. Here is my plan:

February
The Autobiography of Mark Twain
I wanted to think about the tension or relationship between biography and autobiography, and Twain's account of his own life is at least guaranteed to be lively, high-quality writing. Twain is also one of the most staunchly controversial figures in American letters, and one whose work I am very familiar with, so I think he is a great candidate for this kind of comparison - and also someone with whom I will enjoy spending two months. On that note...

March
Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers
With a publication date of 2005, Powers' is the most recent Twain biography. Between this and Twain's own account, I will get the endcaps of the spectrum of writing about his life. From what I could gather from a quick perusal, Powers feels a distinct admiration for his subject and an appreciation for Twain's legacy, but does not idealize him or shrink from his less charming qualities. Seems like a good middle ground, and the prose feels readable.

April
Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale by Gillian Gill
In addition to having heard good reviews of this book when it came out, I was interested to include in my project biographies that diverged from the single-subject norm. This one occupies an interesting in-between space, focusing on Florence Nightingale but telling, in the process, the story of her entire family unit and how her interactions with them defined Florence the person. As I have also read Lytton Strachey's famous castigation of Nightingale in Eminent Victorians, this more in-depth and (I assume) sympathetic book will be an interesting study in two different biographers portraying the same subject.

May
George Eliot: The Last Victorian by Kathryn Hughes
I was excited to find that Hughes, whose style and pacing I am enjoying in Mrs. Beeton, had written a biography of George Eliot. I have been wanting to know more about Eliot for a long time; her proclaimed atheism and non-traditional romantic relationships are easy for me to relate to, and the gentle humanism of her novels is endlessly inspiring without being didactic. Having loved Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss, and liked Silas Marner and The Lifted Veil, I am excited to learn more about the author herself.

June
Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium by Bart Ehrman
As a total know-nothing about all matters theological, this was the hardest book for me to research. But including a biography of "the historical Jesus" is appealing to me because of the extreme contentiousness that the biographer has to traverse, and the extremely fraught meanings and emotions that many readers will inevitably bring to the table. I'm also interested in a biography that draws on such old and piecemeal materials, and where the line dwells between fact and interpretation (if, indeed, "fact" is even a tenable category here). I heard Ehrman interviewed on Fresh Air about his book Misquoting Jesus, and he seemed like a well-spoken, interesting scholar who was also thoughtful and patient. Reviews of this book were strong, so I'm hoping it's a good bet.

July
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
Well, no study of the biographical form would be complete without this book, the famous autobiography of Gertrude Stein masquerading as a biography of her partner Alice Toklas, masquerading as Toklas' own autobiography. I have to say that Stein's style often makes me want to gouge out my eyes, and what I know of her leonine ego and scorn toward other women is not exactly endearing, but I am walking into the reading of this book with hope for better things. Its implications as part of the larger tradition of biography and autobiography are just too rich to ignore. Hopefully old Gertrude, like other experimental linguists, gets more palatable with a little practice.

August
Becoming Mae West by Emily Wortis Leider
After slogging through Toklas I will need a fun-to-read portrait, and Mae West fits the bill. I've been intrigued by West for a long time, and so far, the more I learn the more interested I am. She was a crusader for sexual freedom in an era that wasn't ready to hear it, and took a very high level of creative control over her films, often completely rewriting the scripts. Plus, the woman was a class A wit, and witticisms usually make for enjoyable reading. I thought August, the hottest month in Portland, was a fitting time to devote to West's smoldering sexuality. In addition, she was highly inspired and influenced by the subject of my next month's selection, Bessie Smith.

September
Bessie by Chris Albertson
I originally intended that there be more music biographies on my list; perhaps I'll have to extend this into 2009! Old-school blues are one of my favorite musical genres, and existed in a world about which I would love to know more. In addition, Smith has the advantage of being a character of a subject, a huge personality who has attracted many debunkable and non-debunkable legends over the years. I have heard rave reviews of this biography, not just for fans of Smith but for aficionados of the biography form in general. Looking forward to it!

October
Ladies and Not-So-Gentle Women: Elisabeth Marbury, Anne Morgan, Elsie de Wolfe, Anne Vanderbilt, and Their Times by Alfred Allan Lewis
Although I wasn't immediately drawn to the subjects of this book, it fits nicely into my project in a number of ways: being set in turn-of-the-century New York, it sets up December's selection on Edith Wharton. Its topic of the social consciousness and change wrought by these four elite women invites a comparison and contrast with November's selection on Mother Jones. In addition, like Gill's book on the Nightingales, it is a group biography, this time focusing on a social network rather than a family unit. I hope it will round things out nicely.

November
Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America by Elliot J. Gorn
Having surveyed the kind of gentle (or not-so-gentle) social change a bunch of high-society New York women could make at the turn of the 20th century, I wanted a contrasting portrait of high-impact, high-visibility campaigning in the streets during the same period, and nothing says "down-and-dirty activist" like Mother Jones. I know next-to-nothing about this iconic woman, and am looking forward to learning more.

December
Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee
Several years ago, I read Lee's amazing biography of Virginia Woolf and heard her speak at Smith. I was struck by her prodigious skills as a biographer, and have been hankering after this Wharton study for months. I'm allocating it to December in hopes that it will be out in paperback by then. I think Lee is a master of portraying the multifaceted complexity of her subjects, while not being afraid to argue for strong positions. Wharton should provide her with ample material, and rounds out the several biographies on my list that treat of 1900's New York.

So, that's the plan. I'll be writing up reviews on here, as well as continuing reflections about the ways in which the different books speak to and cast light upon one another. Wish me luck in my biographical pursuits!