Klik op een omslag om naar Google Boeken te gaan.
Bezig met laden... De biograaf (1995)door Alain de Botton
AP Lit (213) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. [Kiss and Tell] was listed here at LT as 'essays" and that I had read it and given it ****, however it is not essays and I am about 95% sure I never have read it. de Botton likes to find his own angle on a topic of interest to him and I think he especially likes the liminal in-between states or identifying the oddities of behaviours we take for granted, in this case the exercise of biography writing. An (ex)girlfriend has accused the narrator of being self-absorbed and insensitive to others. He decides that the next woman he meets he will learn everything he can about her. And so his involvement with Isabel Rogers begins and so does the fun. It is an extremely clever book and funny but without sacrificing warmth and a more than a few insights of the profounder sort, although delivered somewhat offhandedly: "The process of intimacy therefore involved the opposite of seduction, for it meant revealing what risked rendering one most open to unfavourable judgement, or least worthy of love." or "Ironically, we gain the security to discover faults in others as a consequence of the very strength these faulty characters have been generous enough to grant us." Or, "What we recall of our childhood is not the significant portion, but memories designed to shield us from difficult truths." Pow! Good stuff! Our narrator, of course, falls in love with the ordinary Isabel who proves, for him, the more he gets to know her to be unknowable. Along the way lots of digressions about the history and nature and evolution of biography: do you include everything? How does one select? Why we are so fascinated by the ordinary doings of extraordinary people when we couldn't care less what our neighbor likes to eat? Very enjoyable. **** ( ) The hero/narrator, dismissed by his latest girlfriend as totally self-absorbed, determines to prove his possession of the quality of empathy by writing a biography, seeing the biographer’s mission as ‘understanding a human being as fully as one person could hope to understand another, submerging myself in a life other than my own’. For his subject he will select someone quite ordinary, to demonstrate ‘the extraordinariness of any life’. So Kiss and tell details the life of the fictitious Isabel Rogers, ‘the next person to walk into [his] life’, presented in proper biographical format. The 12 chapters begin with ‘The early years’, ‘The early dates’, ‘Family trees’; the volume comes complete with preface and index, and two sections of photographs of Isabel, her family and friends, all appearing entirely authentic. This hybrid novel/biography/ biographical critique comprises three strands. It is at once the (pseudo-)biography of Isabel; an account of the narrator’s developing relationship with her; and much consideration of the nature of biography itself. The tenor of this can well be assessed by quoting the subheadings under BIOGRAPHY in the index: categories of dead details given in discrepancies between author and subject eating habits in ending family research ghost-written impulse to write lack of understanding of subject length men writing about women private life in psychology in relationship between author and subject writing There is reflection on the nature of family trees, adapted for this fiction, which is illustrated by a family tree conventional in layout but "tracing the passage of emotional dispositions" with annotations such as: Christina — depressive, repressive, hysteric = Henry Howard— alcoholic, promiscuous, authoritarian Isabel—‘We can go into it another day. Are you sure I can’t get you anything to eat?’ Lucy—sandwich problem, masochist, intellectual insecurity Paul — aggressive, worshipped too much by mother, neglected by father/sisters The index — 12 pages, to the text’s 246 — is a properly detailed and structured biographical index. It fills out proper names merely mentioned in the text, and large general topics are duly specified as to aspect: hands, taking notice of London: finding way round views of living in men, differences between women and sex: continuing friendship after embarrassment of first experience liberal attitude to manual of substitutes for as symbol of intimacy tastes in with full breakdown for major characters. Isabel’s own entry fills four-and-a-half columns; that of her mother, one-and-a-half. As an index to a hybrid fiction/biography, this must be reckoned a most interesting example of the craft. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Dr. Samuel Johnson observed that everyone's life is a subject worthy of the biographer's art. Accused by a former girlfriend of being unable to empathize, the narrator of Alain de Botton'sKiss & Tell takes Johnson's idea to heart and decides to write about the next person who walks into his life. He meets Isabel Rogers, a production assistant at a small stationery company in London, apparently an ordinary woman. But as the biographer's understanding of Isabel deepens, she becomes remarkable. Her smallest quirks, private habits, and opinions become worthy of the most painstaking investigation-and unexpectedly attractive to her biographer. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
Actuele discussiesGeenPopulaire omslagen
Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
Ben jij dit?Word een LibraryThing Auteur. |