Dear Ken,

What is the "way" of reading that is at stake here?  

I have, for instance, read Sencourt and Matthews and Tate.  They are not 
very useful as biography.  On the other hand, they do give insights from the 
perspective of friends, and are cited by Gordon in her bibliography.  They 
are not useful because the authors really knew very little and did no 
extensive research but mainly wrote their own reactions to him.  Some of 
the writers in Tate knew him well and wrote valuable things, but those are 
not biographies.  So the way of reading in those is to focus on a few 
personal responses.  That can contribute to biography but it is not 
biography.  The way of reading in Gordon is to spend years collecting all 
she can find and reading everything available in collections on both sides of 
the Atlantic and interviewing people and piecing it into a serious look at the 
whole.

Separately, I have just read two chapters, and Seymour-Jones has done 
her homework. She also can write.  I think it may well be that she 
speculates beyond what some evidence shows and it may be that she has 
a way of looking at the material.  That is true of any biography, and one can 
agree or disagree and still get the mass of information on which it is based. 
She has read a great deal of material I have never seen cited before, and 
her quotations from that are incredibly valuable.  So her way of reading is to 
find what has not been known and to write what is therefore a new 
contribution.  I have not read enough to say what I think of the whole.  

Reviewers are human beings.  They give one a base to work from.  Unless 
they demonstrate failure in research or show incompetence from evidence 
or show serious gaps, their evaluation is simply one view.  They are seldom 
more expert than the authors they review.  So their value is to present what 
was written and their position on it, not to establish final truth.  Most 
reviewers of The Waste Land totally trashed it.  I'm quoting from my own 
book here:  "On the negative side, it was called a 'mad medley,' an 
'unhappy composition,' and 'so much wastepaper.'  The style was 
described as full of 'blatancies' and parody without taste or skill.  the notes 
were seen as a substitute  for poetry and the quotations as a substitute for 
originality.  F. L. Lucas, reviewing the poem for the New Statesman, 
summed it up:  'All this is very difficult; as Dr. Johnson said under similar 
circumstances, 'I wish it were impossible.' "

Most people now think those reviewers were just wrong and did not 
recognize genius.  I share that view.  They had, however, read the poem, 
and they were distinguished commentators in serious journals or papers.

Nancy

Date sent:      	Sun, 27 Jan 2002 08:55:24 -0500
Send reply to:  	[log in to unmask]
From:           	Ken Armstrong <[log in to unmask]>
To:             	[log in to unmask]
Subject:        	Re: Thoughts on "La Figlia che Piange"



--On Friday, January 25, 2002 8:02 PM -0500 Nancy Gish 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I am about to read
> the new  bio of Vivienne, and despite the immediate dismissal by many
> (in some  cases prior to reading it)

 Nancy,

  Could this fall under the notion that "It is not necessary to address a
specific 'reading' in order to disagree with a way of reading or a method
of criticism"?

  BTW, it appears that all of the reviewers who dismissed the book did so,
  
specifically, after reading it.

  Ken Armstrong