It seems there was some point in the last twenty years or so where it became almost compulsory for self important persons to have their biography written(many of them not having reached the "prime" of their life).
The unbearably pretentious Dave Eggers immediately comes to mind.
I can't say for certain, but the back flap of Ghost Train says he still divides his time between Cape Cod and Hawaii. When I saw him in San Francisco, he was with a younger woman that I couldn't place; it could've been a handler, wife, or merely a friend. I don't know.
One interesting tidbit he did admit to was cheating on his wife while traveling during the writing of The Great Railway Bazaar. It makes me wonder if the Russian waitress (?) on the Trans-Siberian actually gave in, or was she merely one of the many who spurned his advances? I'll have to reread it and see if I can't glean anything from it.
Oh, and I think everything Paul has written has a measure of autobiographical-ness in it. Per him, and it's mentioned in Dark Star, he often works on fiction while traveling. If Hotel Honolulu isn't directly autobiographical, I bet there are experiences and whatnot from his personal life in there.
If I may turn this briefly back to biographies in general, one of the best ones I've read in recent memory has to be Tim Jeal's Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer. While there have been many books to ruminate on the explorer, none have been so readable or as well informed.
In Hotel Honolulu Theroux writes of a writer drifting to Hawaii, taking a job in an hotel,then shacking up with the beautiful Hawaiian daughter of a woman rumoured to have been John F Kennedy's casual one-night-stand....the daughter apprently was a result of this encounter....in which case, it it's true, then Theroux married and had a daughter himself by this young woman who would have been JFK's offspring. Puzzling.....
I am not too bothered about which details of Theroux's novels are autobiographical and which aren't, since all writers must certainly blur those lines.
Nic, I cannot agree with you about Dave Eggers. I do feel that "Heartbreaking Work ...." could have benefited from some editing, but overall was fascinating and well-written. "What is the What?" was an important book, gracefully and intelligently rendered. Eggers has incredible, useful ideas that he actually puts to work, and in ways that help and inspire others.
I feel he is a force in helping to revitalize real journalism, which could be somewhat of a dying art.
The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh. This is a 3-volume edition of his letters to Theo and is remarkable. Years ago, I bought the 1959 edition, (printed in the Netherlands and and released by the New york Graphic Society) and it was reprinted in the last few years.
Anyone who loves art will enjoy these letters. Be prepared, there are 1,600 pages of his words to Theo. They don't have to be read in sequence and you don't have to read them all. My edition contains beautiful small sketches that are loosely attached to a particular letter, a small detail, a rough preliminary sketch etc. Van Gogh was an excellent and evocative writer and his portrait of this age of painting, his constant poverty, and his friends (Gauguin etc) is fascinating. He writes in simple and beautiful detail of how he painted many of his works.
Joined: Nov 2011 Gender: Female Posts: 48 Location: Toronto Canada
Re: Biographies « Reply #65 on Jan 19, 2010, 3:27pm »
The Widow Cliquot, or, 'La Veuve Clicquot, by Tilar Mazzeo. This was one of those rare books that I consciously tried to slow down my reading to make it last. It engaged me on several levels, the story of Mme. Clicquot, the history of the times, the detailed look at the history of champagne and the feel for the area of Reims-Epernay, in Champagne.
Barbe-Nicole Clicquot-Ponsardin was an exceptional woman in any age. She lived a full life and an unusually long time, 1777-1866, 89 years. Her marriage to Francois Clicquot united two of the most prosperous champagne houses in France. His early death left her a widow at 27. She decided to carry on and develop the house of Clicquot...not by sitting in one of her many wealthy homes, but 'hands on'. She absorbed herself in the business day to day, visiting and observing both in the vinyards and the caves. She listened to her managers. La Veuve brought the house of Cliquot to glory, and, she was responsible for many innovations that came to benefit the entire industry. ie: remuage. She was brilliant and risky in many of her business decisions. Throughout her life, the business ebbed and flowed, but she perservered. I find her to be energizing for me, 144 years after her death.
There are few paintings of her, just these two when she was very old. The little girl is her great grand daughter.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 34,548 Location: Paris, France
Re: Biographies « Reply #67 on Mar 15, 2010, 8:36pm »
I was thinking again of my meager biographic readings and can find no rhyme nor reason to the people about whom I want to know more. But I do know that something like the biography of Charles Manson interests me more than one about someone who did something admirable.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Biographies « Reply #69 on Oct 18, 2010, 9:55pm »
It's time now that I admit that while I was on vacation in NY, I checked out of the library,the recently written biography of Warren Beatty,Star,by Peter Biskind. I have always liked Beatty on some level,his politics,sensitivity,intelligence,and yes,his looks. I know he's a temperamental,narcissistic,somewhat arrogant,prima donna,self entitled peacock. But,so are many of the men I have admired in my life. I also am intrigued by the era,his rising as a movie star coinciding with my adolescence,and many of the characters in the book,movie stars representative of my generation. It is intelligently written,(although,unauthorized,Biskind came as close to Beatty as any writer ever did to getting it authorized),but,just trashy enough,with little tidbits of information about certain people to be extremely entertaining.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Biographies « Reply #71 on Nov 8, 2011, 10:48am »
I'm so wanting to read the most recent biography of Catherine the Great,Portrait of a Woman by Robert Massie.(veteran biographer of Russian royalty) Fabulous reviews and an intriguing subject.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 3,997 Location: South-West France
Re: Biographies « Reply #72 on Nov 8, 2011, 11:28am »
Looking back through this thread I realize I don't usually read biographies. But I did just finish Christopher Hitchens' Hitch 22, which is well written.
I also recently bought Tony Judt's memoirs, which I had read bits and pieces in the NYRB.
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Biographies « Reply #73 on Dec 12, 2011, 10:57am »
I just finished Catherine the Great last night. Wow!! Truly fascinating!! Those Russkies were some crazy!! The opulence,decadence,and greed for power boggles the mind. It also made me even more acutely aware of how poor Poland has been plundered for centuries,those poor people!!!
So it's worth reading, Casi? I read a good review of it recently but have been hesitating.
Indeed it is. Fascinating and well written,I stayed riveted throughout. Your knowledge of that era in history and the countries involved is probably more extensive than mine BJ,but, from both a historical perspective and the depth of character that the author probes is fabulous reading. One of the more fascinating historical characters I have ever read about. (I already envision a film being made of this bio,with either Kate Blanchett or Gweneth Paltrow playing Catherine).
Joined: Jan 2013 Gender: Female Posts: 373 Location: NOLA,USA
Re: Biographies « Reply #78 on Mar 27, 2012, 2:53am »
I just checked out of the library a recent reissue of a biography of Nikola Tesla, Lightning in His Hand. I've always been fascinated by this mad genius. This book is a compilation of letters written by Tesla and interviews with people who knew him personally.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 4,271 Location: USA
Re: Biographies « Reply #83 on Mar 29, 2013, 2:29pm »
I got in a biography mood at the library, randomly picked one about Lady Caroline Lamb by Paul Douglass (for her scandalous, talented but unbalanced-Byron-stalker interest), one that looked reasonably shortish about Abraham Lincoln (The Last Best Hope of Earth) by Neely, and Doris Kearns Goodwin's Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.
Lady Caroline got tedious pretty quickly; a newspaper review or wickipedia article would have been enough. And I should look for a better-written Lincoln life out of the many out there.
Kearns' LBJ is really worth reading, though. She manages to give some hint of his outsize personality, and maybe what lay behind it. The end is sad, as ends of biographies tend to be, not because of his death but because of how hurt he was by the country's failure to love him after all he'd done.
Read Alastair Campbell's diaries The Blair Years. Well, okay -- skimmed it -- and enjoyed it, self-serving as it inevitably was in spots.
Then jumped into Her Majesty, a fairly recent discussion of QEII and how she is now. Little or nothing about her past life, and not quite fawning but maybe a little too authorized. Some nice anecdotes.
Breezed through Great Expectations: The Sons & Daughters of Charles Dickens. The poor things.
Joined: Feb 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 4,271 Location: USA
Re: Biographies « Reply #85 on May 2, 2013, 2:12am »
I just finished Lorenzo the Magnificant, by David Loth, published 1929. Really nicely done life of the Medici Renaissance bon vivant banker who used public funds as his own and gave Florence a beautiful ride, took Michealangelo into his home as a young man and gave da Vinci a reference as the best lute player in Italy.
Dry humor in the old fashioned style, readable throughout.
About Savonarola, the guy whose bonfires of the vanities were actual bonfires of Boticelli paintings and such: .. he predicted wholesale death and destruction, the .. ravages of war, the sacking of cities, all the barbarities of a retribution which he believed to be the aim of an all-merciful, all-loving God.
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