Reading Biographies

I don't read many biographies because I am not curious enough about other people's lives. A very few biographies matter to me, and they matter to me because they touch my own life at crucial points. Andrew Motion's biography of Philip Larkin explained to me, before I came out as gay, that unfulfilment can be a source of artistic power; it developed that theme like a novel. In Richard Davenport-Hines' biography of Auden, I saw my own flight from country, orchestrated like an opera. And now Hilary Spurling's biography of Matisse grips me with a familiar power: in its depiction of the artist's struggles, of his wife's devotion to his art, of his artistic breakthroughs, it beguiles like a Romance.

Comments

Esme B J Lee said…
Jee, read Richard Ellman's bio of Oscar Wilde. It is great as a scan of the century he lived in and as an introduction to modern as we know it.

Barbara Jean
8:29 PM
Jee Leong said…
Hi Barbara Jean,
I've heard so much about the greatnenss of Ellman's bio that I am BOUND to find it disappointing. Thanks for the recommendation and the reminder. If only dear Oscar is truly interesting...
10:38 PM
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