There are many criteria that ought to be considered when evaluating a biographical account: accuracy and pertinence of included (and excluded) information, for example, or the evenness and subjectivity of the biographer. Or length. Some time ago biographers and editors must have conferenced and decided that no biography shall be published totaling less than 250 pages, despite a mountain of empirical evidence suggesting that there are just some bastards so base and banal that a 25-page biography seems unbearable and gratuitous. To be fair, writing a biography is surely a challenging task. It must be thoroughly researched, organized for chronological and explicative clarity, and (generally) contain a plot or character arc; something to theme and direct the biographee's life in a way that makes sense to an audience accustomed to predictable televisual and dramatic moralizing.
In these prurient and tabloid/scandal-obsessed times, it seems to be very a la mode and popularly rewarded to be a celebrity garbage-rifler, building up your subject only to belittle him or her later by tarnishing or impugning the subject with juicy, psychopathic, borderline slander. Gems hidden within 400-page profiles such as "The secret to Arnold Schwarzenneger's success as a professional weightlifter was his hidden fetish for coitus with quadruple amputees, whom he had to physically support and maneuver during his sexual episodes," or "Rosie O'Donnell was once overheard to claim responsibility for 62% of American cases of erectile dysfunction," can make a Best-Seller. But it is not these ridiculous quotes or reckless implications which make a biography truly great.
A great biography must do more than acquaint you with its subject (and the possible filthy rumors surrounding said subject); by the time you reach the final punctuation mark, you ought to feel as though you've befriended the subject. You should know more than merely the pitfalls and triumphs and childhood crushes, but about the experiences and traumas that mold character and substantiate essence. "It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief," Robert Kennedy once said, "that human history is shaped." If the scale of that statement is reduced, then we deduce that one's own individual history is shaped by one's own diverse acts, no matter how brave or craven, seemingly significant or insignificant. One's life is as a quilt, woven with experience. And with a biography, it's the little, private anecdotes - the ones you wouldn't know about if someone hadn't done extensive research - that stand out more than the Public Access Facts, that give you insight into the infinite Why?'s of another's life, that help to explain or address things that an individual is either incapable or unwilling to do himself.
Evan Thomas' biography of Robert Kennedy, "Robert Kennedy: His Life" does a fine job of filling out the picture of an icon. It does not allow for a romantic, one-dimensional depiction of RFK as a martyr, nor does it cop out by taking advantage of the treasure trove of Kennedy gossip and lore. Rather it fosters a multi-patterned and textured characterization that accurately reflects RFK's degrees of complexity and, at times, confusion. Thomas' bio treats Kennedy as an obsessive self-improver, one with a natural disposition that presents an exercise in opposite extremes: weak child and bully, runt and patriarch, petulant and munificent, coward and hero. In navigating the contours of Kennedy's life, Thomas moves towards explaining the contradictions inherent in his nature.
"He was brave because he was afraid." This dueling nature of conflict and contradiction was a necessary component to Kennedy's character (a duality I suspect is an extant and animating force in most beings with a conscience), an imperative made explicit in Thomas' prologue. Kennedy's courage bloomed from a bud of fear and insecurity inculcated by his domineering father and overachieving older brothers. As a boy, Bobby was effusively praised by strangers in Hyannis who mistook him for his brother after John had recently been decorated as a war hero. One can only surmise what the effect of this praise was on young and fragile Bobby; to taste the sweetness of affection and recognition misplaced - meant, actually, for his older brother. Some years later, Bobby met John on his way to a movie theater with a date. John, liking the way Bobby's date looked, decided to accompany the couple to the movie. The next morning, he called up the date and took her out, and she never heard from Bobby again. These endearing anecdotes do more than just reinforce an image; they help us understand the environment and circumstances in which Bobby developed and to grasp his resolve and ambition to make something more of himself.
At times, the biography specifically chronicles Bobby's feats of courage, an attribute he emphatically prized. One of Kennedy's finest moments involved scaling the summit of Mt. Kennedy, then the highest unclimbed mountain in North America at almost 14,000 feet. Kennedy reached the top despite an intense fear of heights. As a young Attorney General, Kennedy was known for being ruthless, but Thomas provides a touching scene of Kennedy's tenderness when, at a party at his house, he noticed Judy Garland looking forlorn and out of place, not speaking to anyone. Kennedy, shy and overlooked as a boy, sought her out and swept her away for a slow dance. And when Jackie gave birth to her (and John's) first child - a stillbirth - Bobby was the only family member on hand to comfort her. Scenes like this testify to Bobby's sensitivity, making his reputation for ruthlessness seem all the more uneven and willful, and his humanity more rounded and full.
But Bobby was not without his quirks; despite his constantly evolving sense of justice and responsibility, he never outgrew boyhood in some ways. His enthusiasm for challenging others to push-up contests, including the teamster Jimmy Hoffa, his arch-nemesis as a government prosecutor, is a fine example of his almost foolishly boyish competitive streak. Several years after Hoffa, Kennedy took a break from his presidential campaign to toss a football around with a young college graduate for 45 minutes, claiming to be sick and tired of dealing with mayors and staffers. Apparently, since money had never been any object to Bobby, he did not make a point of traveling with it. A staffer's story goes that while sitting in church, he contributed $1 to the collection plate for Kennedy - Kennedy looked at him, point blank, and without sarcasm asked, "Don't you think I'd be more generous than that?" Presumably, this preceded the advent of the AmEx Centurion Card.
Alternatively, "George, Being George," the editor explicitly states, is not a biography. Not in the traditional sense, at least. Instead of the tried-and-true straightforward prose narrative, "George, being George" is an anthology of oral histories, collected and arranged to form a loose semblance of the chronology of George Plimpton's life. This collectively written approach constitutes a radical departure from the realm of traditional biography, where the scope is unilateral and refined. The effect is to exaggerate the significance of certain isolated events or experiences that could otherwise have easily gone undocumented, helping to construct a multivocal and tessellated fabric.
Like Kennedy, Plimpton nurtured an inner childishness manifested by lifelong glee and revelry in fireworks, pranks, parties, and helmetless bicycle riding, even as a white-locked septuagenarian. Plimpton, who always aspired to be an illustrious writer but deferred out of respect to his responsibilities as editor for the Paris Review, tellingly imagined children's stories with an early girlfriend. The story of his expulsion from the stuffy, preppy Exeter Academy - involving a toy gun and a macho football coach who, apparently, screamed like a little girl whenever surprised - would bring a smile to any mischief-maker's face.
This failure to abolish (or even admonish) the child within fueled Plimpton's curiosity, something evidenced not only in his interests in taxidermy and bird-watching (every birdwatcher I've ever known has suffered from a chronic curiosity of sorts) or women (a friend once said of Plimpton that he was "far more curious than serious about women"), but in outright fascination. His enthusiasm and capacity for marveling were infectious, his vocabulary stuffed with expressions of juvenile purity: "Golly!," "Good heavens!," "Can you believe that?"
Also like Kennedy, Plimpton was known to travel without money (Is this a Brahmin thing, instilled from birth? Have they been so comfortable with money for so long that it has been ingrained to feel as though one has it, even when one doesn't?), to the frequent inconvenience of friends. His oft-admired ability for extemporaneous speech appeared at an early age when, at Cambridge, he was asked an exam question about Charles James Fox, a prominent British statesman from the 18th century. Plimpton, drawing a blank, began to spin a tale about a middling second baseman who played for the Cincinnati Reds, a charade he carried on for 3 hours. And while Plimpton became famous for writing about his experiences as an amateur in the professional sports world, what could have been his most heroic story - the capture of Sirhan Sirhan after he opened fire on RFK - was never written. Perhaps it was too close to the heart, or maybe Plimpton felt it would have been exploitative to write about, but for some reason he never did, an omission which testifies to his character. Another testament to that character is the almost masochistic joy with which he told the story of his first heartbreak to friends; so long as he had a story with which to entertain people, to draw them in, it didn't matter if pain was involved, even if the pain was done to him.
This is the gift and ultimate purpose of a truly great biography; to connect us with the palpable humanity of the subject, making a story that might seem distant or abstract universally relatable. The purpose is not to aggrandize, demonize, or mythologize, but to diminish the ostensible gap between the subject and the audience. In the biographical realm to praise a man is nothing, to explain a man, everything. Hence, the more you can reveal, paradoxically, the more you can create.
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