Biographies - I skim the first part, and so do you!

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You know the biographies that begin: "Oliver met Minnie on the Portsmouth dock while working for a textile merchant in October, 1821. She fell for his rakish charm, and he for her chatty pluck..."

And then they detail the emigration to Boston, the first born that died of cholera, the loveless marriage and the mansion on the hill that was lost in a foreclosure, etc. But it's a biography of Belinda Carlisle! And you don't give a f*ck what happened until she was born! And in reality, you don't even care about her until she started playing music...

So you skim, and so do I!

― andy, Thursday, 21 October 2004 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, yes, of course you were born.

― Huk-L, Thursday, 21 October 2004 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Not me, I sprang fully formed from my father's skull.

― athena (Jocelyn), Thursday, 21 October 2004 15:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes - but biographers are geting cunning and not sticking to chronological order any more

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Thursday, 21 October 2004 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't skim at all. That's why it's taking me a million years to read this Colette biography.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:04 (twenty-one years ago)

See if Reader's Digest has condensed Colette's life... I wish they'd condense mine, and leave out all the tedious bus rides and visits to the barber...

― andy, Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

See, that's one of the problem with greatness - if you become 'great', your biographer will probably be written by some mook who will claim that your busrides are of vital importance to understanding who you become, or claim that you make more sense if we assume that you have BSE.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Ahem - that should be 'biography' not 'biographer', of course.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not big on biography, I usually just skip to the pictures and then replace it on the B&N shelf.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Or take the home the A&E tape.

― andy, Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I go directly to that picture bit in the middle and then hurl it on a fire.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Write your own unauthorised autobiography. It's easier in the long run.

― Kissing Time At The Pleasure Unit (kate), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that possible? It sounds horribly complicated, in a metaphysical way. Would I have to do it while drunk? Or asleep?

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Ask Ray Davies. ;-)

― Kissing Time At The Pleasure Unit (kate), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Last night someone suggested a title for my (non-existent)autobiography. It was Beer Before Liquor.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I've read a fair amount of biographies, and forgotten most of them, EXCEPT for the life of Django Rheinhart, translated from the French. It was charming and funny, because one of the main characters was his pet monkey. Also, his gypsy family would bash holes through the walls of fine hotels, and cook on an open fire on the floor.

― andy, Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:26 (twenty-one years ago)

you make more sense if we assume that you have BSE.

Hmmm, better get myself tested.. I just assumed that the secret to modern biography is to show that your subject was an anti-semitic homosexual.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, but it doesn't work if your subject is european.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:30 (twenty-one years ago)

the first part of a biography is ALWAYS my favorite. celebrities' lives get so samey after they become famous. i wanna hear about all the trashy things they did when they were young.

― paranoia is the hipster's disease (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

And they needed the cash.

― adam. (nordicskilla), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"Young Winston promised himself it was the last time he would be a rent boy but he needed money for the scotch and the polka-dotted bowtie looked really fetching he thought and so he trundled down to the corner where he had spent many prior afternoons."

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:35 (twenty-one years ago)

EXACTLY (xpost)

― paranoia is the hipster's disease (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Some noteworthy people have TWO biographies, yes TWO: the standard attack piece (a drug addled, self-absorbed antisemite who resented his children) and the "reexamintation" bio (troubled, shy, visionary, extremely loyal, etc.)...

Or, if you're Thomas Jefferson, you have more: a book of praise, followed by the dirt, followed by a thoughtful "in context" piece....

― andy, Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:41 (twenty-one years ago)

The best sentence in Debbie Harry's book _Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie_ reads "Debbie Harry was born to an unlisted mother in...."
So the birth bits aren't all bad...

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 21 October 2004 16:50 (twenty-one years ago)

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