CANNIBALISM?
07.01.2006
The title of Carl Rollyson’s A Higher Form of Cannibalism? comes from Rudyard Kipling’s characterization of biographers. It is one example among many of how biographers are treated as second class citizens within the literary world. Rollyson devotes a great deal of space to itemizing these complaints. Biography is said to be salacious and gossipy for the sake of selling books and ruining reputations. It is impolite and ungentlemanly. Biographers invade others’ privacy—even rummaging through their trash and paying-off the staff—in order to get indiscrete details. These details are said to distract from their subject’s work and not accurately reflect their life. Biographers take subjects and witnesses into their confidence, only to betray them. This makes biographers sadists, vampires, parasites, grave robbers and jealous wannabes with a “philistine envy”—to name just a few of the insults hurled at them.
Rollyson is brooking none of this criticism. He argues that biography writing can be a blood-sport, whereby biographers must contend with vicious reviewers, the ever-present threat of law suits, back-stabbing by sources, potentially censorious publishers, uncooperative subjects, and competition from other biographers. To overcome these “roadblocks and traffic checks”, a biographer must sometimes be ruthless and crafty (even underhanded) in the collection of information and evidence. Biography writing is a struggle. A good biographer has a repertoire of tricks to acquire documents and conduct productive interviews with key witnesses. That is why the word politics is in the subtitle of the book. And Rollyson is an unapologetic, pro-biographer partisan.
The other word in the subtitle is art. The author despairs that the reputation of biography in the literary world does not match its popularity. Even biographers themselves feel obliged to self-consciously rationalize what they do and be apologetic about the intrusion into others lives. Rollyson claims that biography can reveal important things about public figures and their work. Even minute details can indicate a great deal. A well-crafted biography can stimulate the imagination and put the reader in the subject’s shoes.
Drawing from Samuel Johnson, Rollyson views the writing of biography as part of the Enlightenment project; as an unrecognized expression of the project’s ideals. For Rollyson, this definitely includes the commitment to intellectual freedom and independent inquiry, as opposed to an uncritical pandering to orthodoxy, moral dogma, prevailing wisdom, and hero-worship. This is one of Rollyson’s most consistent messages: he has no time for hagiography; he is apprehensive about authorized biography; he is critical of biographers who stick closely to widely known facts or a subject’s work (as many literary biographers do). He dislikes the censorship (or self-censorship) inherent in all these forms. It is the biographer’s job to be inquisitive and unrelenting, so long as the zealousness does not cause a loss of perspective.
The most vivid example of biographer’s role as independent debunker is Richard Aldington’s revisionist biography of D. H. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia). Many of the famous stories about Lawrence are exaggerations or outright fabrications. In some cases, this was discovered by simply applying basic scrutiny to some of the stories. Yet, in revealing the truth, Aldington was the victim of a campaign to prevent the biography from being published, as well as sustained attacks on the biography and author once publication had taken place. Aldington was unfairly treated as a spoilsport.
Any appeal to Enlightenment ideals would also include the duty to overcome ignorance through careful and forthright observation of subjects and the accumulation of evidence. Rollyson’s views on this seem a little more malleable. I’m not suggesting that Rollyson isn’t rigorous in the way he conducts biographical research (he has written seven biographies). However, he does express two sets of opinions which place his endorsement of methodological stringency in doubt.
The first set of opinions relate to his defence of shoddy hack work. The community of biographers make a distinction between high and low biography. The former is rigorous and intelligent, the latter is laden with “dishy” rumours which cater to cheap thrills. Rollyson admits that he goes against the grain by not making such a distinction. Moreover, he sees a great deal of value in biography deemed to be of the low variety. This is defensible. What isn’t defensible are the lame excuses he gives for blatantly reckless biographers. His defence of the controversial Kitty Kelly is a case in point. She is accused of fabricating quotations, claiming she interviewed people she didn’t, and not checking her sources. In other words, she wants to create a good, scandalous yarn and won’t be confined by even the weakest standards of methodological stringency. To this, Rollyson seems to shrug his shoulders as if to say, “So what?” For example, as to the allegation of fabricating quotations, Rollyson simply says, “Thucydides did that too.” (p. 54) Contrary to being an expression of Enlightenment ideals, this type of writing can reinforce ignorant misperceptions about people.
The second set of opinions relate to Rollyson’s view that biographers should be given license to go on flights of imagination. He covets the creative freedom of novelists. Of course, no one would argue that writing biography does not (or should not) involve creativity. Analysis and composition are inherently creative. Thus, there is even a place for pure speculation and conjecture, so long as it is acknowledged as such. It is not clear where Rollyson would place the limits on this creative license. Novelists, after all, usually just make stuff up. Surely biographers should not have the same freedom. Otherwise, biographies would have the credibility of docu-dramas, films “based on true events”, and other forms of sexed-up info-tainment.
Some have argued that biography is an epistemologically problematic genre because a biographer can not possible know the true person being studied. Rollyson acknowledges that there is no such thing as a definitive biography. He adds that multiple biographies of a person are always preferable for the breadth of information and perspective which are brought to bear. I don’t think that this diminishes biography as a form of inquiry. To the contrary, it is healthy to be sensitive to the limits of inquiry and keep in mind the provisional nature of all claims to truth. Rollyson is also right to underscore that the biography is not a person’s life, but an author’s account of that life. A great deal of analysis, filtering of information, and narrative crafting goes into a biography. This is the case with all forms of inquiry.
Are any tricks of the trade revealed in the book? This is not a trivial question because, as Rollyson points out, workshops for biographers don’t exist. The interview methods are portrayed as similar to that of an investigative reporter, except over a longer time frame and requiring a smoother touch. Biographers need to therefore build relationships with interviewees or, failing that, just be bloody persistent and bothersome. Resilience is crucial, for rejection can take its toll. Good interviewers appear as mannered and empathetic allies to their interviewees, although Rollyson stresses that the need to be cold-blooded makes this ploy highly disingenuous. Much of the biographer’s time is spent in document repositories, looking through a subject’s personal letters. Interestingly, most libraries insist that biographers sign a document that forbids publication of quotations without permission. This is unenforceable and exists mostly to give the authors of the letters a false sense of security. If all goes well, the core of a biography should crystallize after six months for a skilled and focused biographer. Rollyson describes a number of cases (“adventures”) that add practical insights to the research, composition, and publication stages—far too many to itemize here.
Overall, A Higher Form of Cannibalism? is a worthwhile read about a neglected subject: how to be a biographer. Just don’t expect a deep analysis of biographer ethics, even though a number of ethical hot-buttons are pushed. Rollyson successfully (and rightfully) shoots down many objections to biographical inquiry. This is not coupled with a strong defence of the darker side of the genre. Nor is an ethical code offered because Rollyson denies the viability and appropriateness of such a code. A biographer is somewhat of a renegade. The motto seems to be: everyone is fair game; do whatever it takes to get the story; the finished work is a justification in its own right. I wonder what the world would be like if every type of researcher lived by that motto.
Review by Peter Stoyko
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