Ropes of Sand

Appetite for Appetities

I've been thinking lately about those New Yorker pieces that feature the lives of famous writers, politicians, mathematicians, painters, prostitutes, and the like. It seems that generally the occasion for these pieces is the release of new scholarship. The article serves as a sort of gloriously executed annotated bibliography, reviewing past and present treatments of the individual's life and contribution, often summarizing those sources' weaknesses in comparison with one another. But it also serves as a bite-sized biography, often positing its own notions with authority and veracity. I feel sated and informed after reading them. Happily educated and not super interested in further reading. More often than not, they satisfy my appetite, rather than creating one. And I do have guilt about this.

I've often wondered how all this might sit with writers whose works appear in summation or in passing. Perhaps they've made it their life's work to study and dig and write -- how must it feel to see the field reduced to a single large-circulation magazine article? We get a little glimpse of that in this series of e-mails from Valerie Lawson, the author of a decades long in the making biography on Pamela Travers, to the editors of the New Yorker:

The Secret Life of A Letter to The Editor

Thanks to Powell'sBooks.Blog for the link and to CJR for the publication of the exchange.

posted by SAS @ Friday, March 10, 2006