Monday, October 09, 2006

The art of lives ...

... Terry Teachout on biography: Beyond the pigeonhole. See also, though, this Almanac entry.

The biographies that annoy me are those in which the author has decided to simply catalog the research. A good biography demands that the author make hard choices in order to arrive at a clear and distinct portrait of the subject. This involves a selection and arrangement of salient details - and, as Terry says, it means to show and not merely tell.

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