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ccbc-net digest 9 Nov 2000
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From: Elizabeth Partridge <ep>
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 15:45:57 -0800
I'm fascinated by this discussion on biography. As a biographer, I struggle with the issue of relating the person's life as truthfully as possible. Nothing --not a word, not a gesture -?n be made up. And yet, when I am writing about a person, I am constantly making choices about what to put in and what to leave out. What issues should be shared with readers and what issues should be left alone? Let's say a woman has had an abortion. Is that her private business, or does it belong in the book? It might be private, but what if it influences her to behave in a certain way later? What if the person did something heinous? Am I presenting a one-sided picture of a complex person to leave it out?
Also critically important to me is the overall choice I have to make about the "spine" of the book. What are the core issues that motivated the person to make the choices she/he did? Right now I am working on a biography on Woody Guthrie, who wrote "This Land is Your Land." He was a complex, brilliant man with both rough and tender sides. When he was young, his mother was stricken with Huntington's Disease which created havoc in the family, causing her terrible emotional and physical problems before her death in an insane asylum. Later Woody would spend many years in an mental hospital and die of the same illness. I believe Woody was haunted by Huntington's - it destroyed his childhood and moved inextricably in on him. Yet another biographer would make a different choice about his core issues.
So while I am carefully, painstakingly, telling the truth about Woody I am also giving readers a very definite viewpoint. It is not The Truth by any means.
Imagine what a biographer might write about you. Would it be right? Wrong? Factually honest but not the way you chose to look at your life? I join Violet Harris in wishing that someone with Meltzer's or Freedman's experience would write an article about how they sort out these issues!
Elizabeth Partridge www.elizabethpartridge.com
Received on Thu 09 Nov 2000 05:45:57 PM CST
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 15:45:57 -0800
I'm fascinated by this discussion on biography. As a biographer, I struggle with the issue of relating the person's life as truthfully as possible. Nothing --not a word, not a gesture -?n be made up. And yet, when I am writing about a person, I am constantly making choices about what to put in and what to leave out. What issues should be shared with readers and what issues should be left alone? Let's say a woman has had an abortion. Is that her private business, or does it belong in the book? It might be private, but what if it influences her to behave in a certain way later? What if the person did something heinous? Am I presenting a one-sided picture of a complex person to leave it out?
Also critically important to me is the overall choice I have to make about the "spine" of the book. What are the core issues that motivated the person to make the choices she/he did? Right now I am working on a biography on Woody Guthrie, who wrote "This Land is Your Land." He was a complex, brilliant man with both rough and tender sides. When he was young, his mother was stricken with Huntington's Disease which created havoc in the family, causing her terrible emotional and physical problems before her death in an insane asylum. Later Woody would spend many years in an mental hospital and die of the same illness. I believe Woody was haunted by Huntington's - it destroyed his childhood and moved inextricably in on him. Yet another biographer would make a different choice about his core issues.
So while I am carefully, painstakingly, telling the truth about Woody I am also giving readers a very definite viewpoint. It is not The Truth by any means.
Imagine what a biographer might write about you. Would it be right? Wrong? Factually honest but not the way you chose to look at your life? I join Violet Harris in wishing that someone with Meltzer's or Freedman's experience would write an article about how they sort out these issues!
Elizabeth Partridge www.elizabethpartridge.com
Received on Thu 09 Nov 2000 05:45:57 PM CST
