Biographies, Heavy and Otherwise

I see there is a new biography of Raymond Williams, the British critic (link). This is volume I; it stops somewhere short of his 40th birthday. I am an admirer of Raymond Williams (at least what he wrote before the critical wheels fell off) but--another volume? The only defense for this sort of thing is that everybody does it. Blame it on Boswell: since he initiated the genre with his Life of Johnson, any biographer has felt privileged, if he likes to write a life of his subject as long as the life itself.

It need not be so. There are counter-examples, and I wonder in particular if there has ever been a more effective short biography than Felix Markham on Napoleon? In 252 pages (not counting support material), Markham wraps up what may have been the busiest, most eventful career in modern history--and does it in a manner not only briskly readable, but to all appearances well-informed and critically detached. And he doesn't seem to strain: he finds time to tell us where and when Napoleon saw his first performance of Don Giovanni; he tells us how the Russian general Kutusov rebuked an underling for making light of his great adversary, and he records the spare, chilling log entry on the death of Lord Nelson (see infra). Oh, and he includes a final chapter (12 pages) on "The Napoleon Legend."

My copy is a Mentor paperback that dates from 1966 (and it seems to be still in print, with the same cover (link)); the original appears to date to 1963. For a sample of here is Markham discussing Napoleon's relationship with his family:

If they lacked Napoleon's ability, they were liberally endowed with individuality, self-will, and ambition; and they were seldom over-awed by their illustrious brother Their grumblings, their sulks, and their demands so exasperated Napoleon that he complained 'From the way they talk, one would think that I had mismanaged our father's inheritance.' It is true that Joseph, made first King of Naples and then of Spain, Louis, King of Holland, and Jerome, King of Westphalia, were put in an impossible position wjhen they found they were epected to obey orders like Napoleon's Prefects; but it cannot be said that they deserved their positions on their merits.

--Felix Markham, Napoleon 144 (1966)

Markham is distinctive, but probably not unique--not quite as good, but certainly in the same league--would be Duff Cooper's biography of Talleyrand (link). If Napoleon's is the busiest life in modern history, then Talleyrand might well be second. Ironic that Napoleon and Talleyrand together wind up witn not many more pages than Raymond Williams.

And come to think of it, throw in A.J.P. Taylor on Bismark (link) and you still aren't up to the girth of Boswell's Johnson. I don't to get carried away here: I cherish every word of Boswell's Johnson, but I do remember what Johnson himself said of Milton's Paradise Lost: "None ever wished it longer than it is" (link).

Oh, and on the death of Nelson. from the log of his flagship, the Victory, on the Battle of Trafalgar:

Partial firing continued until 4.30, when a victory having been reported to the Rt. Hon. Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., he died of his wound.

So Markham at 116.