Biographies, Fandom and Fanfiction

More on Katharine Hepburn; this review of KATE REMEMBERED makes it sound as if the author managed to strike the delicate balance of frankness and respect. Biography is an inherently problematic genre, as Janet Malcom pointed out in the highly readable The Silent Woman, taking Sylvia Plath biographies as her example. As someone who read quite a lot of biographies, memoirs, etc. as a matter of research in her professional life, I concurr. There is no such thing as an objective pov. By the very choice of which areas in your subject's life to emphasize, and which to regard as less important, you already paint a subjective picture. Your view. Which is why, imo, novelists are in a way more honest; they never claim to present THE truth, just their personal interpretation of it. But back to biographies: It occured to me biographers can have quite a lot in common with modern fandom. There is the character bashing variety; there's the sanctification variety; then there are those who aim for the middle and end up worthy, but dull, or manage to actually pull it off, give the reader the idea that he/she got to know these people and their friends/antagonists/family in a more than superficial way and without too obvious a bias.

Above all, there is possessiveness. Which ticks me off both in fanfic and in biographies, and yet I know I'm a hypocrite; I've felt quite possessive about a few characters, historical and fictional, in my life. Still, using Plath biographies as Malcom did: one of the reasons why I dislike Paul Alexander's Rough Magic and Ronald Hayman's opus so much isn't just the sanctification/vilification going on but also the undertone of "I would have understood her so much better - he just wasn't worthy!" Which is exactly the same thing as the "character X doesn't get appreciated enough by Y" complaints cadesama was talking about recently.

In the spirit of exposing my above mentioned double standard: I'm also a Ricardian, which is a shorthand for someone who believes Richard III was framed. For a brief and entertaining introduction into the controversy, see Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time; lovers of lengthy historical novels should go for one of my all time favourites, The Sunne in Splendour, by Sharon Penman. Incidentally, Penman and Tey come to different conclusions regarding the identity of the person who did kill the Princes in the Tower. Anyway, no matter who it was, the guy mainly responsible for blackening Richard's reputation for propaganda purposes was Henry Tudor, aka Henry VII. The Richard III society, which has a website, also provides a public service for Ricardians in the form of allowing them to rearrange Henry Tudor's face..

pandarus has some smart thoughts on various fandoms - Jossverse, LotR, Harry Potter, Sandman and Smallville among them. Why do we sometimes fall for canon, and sometimes for fanon? (Not that I ever fell for fanon, except in the sense of liking Susan Kay's Phantom better than Gaston Leroux' Phantom of the Opera, but it's a fascinating phenomenon - paging hmpf here.)

Something which also didn't happen to me me was the denial about someone's death thing. Oh, I've mourned my share of characters. Absolutely. But I never felt tempted to go into "it didn't happen in MY world" mode. However, mourning and denial aren't the only two reactions caused by the recent death in the Potterverse. A while ago, musesfool wrote a post about why The Death doesn't make literary sense to her (which is a very different objection than "but I didn't want X to die!"). Tabellae wrote a well-argued post about why it makes complete literary sense here. Alternatively, you could go and read Te's story in which said character...let's just say I suspect the influence of the Jossverse here..

In earlier entries, I vented some of my frustration about the lack of Londo, G'kar and Vir stories online and the dominance of 'shipper fic in Babylon 5. I still haven't found something about these three gentlemen, but deborah_judge wrote a stunning, sensitive and beautiful exloration of Lennier post-Objects at Rest. If this doesn't make you curious enough - the narrator is none other than the late Mr. Morden. Read and admire, here.

( On a less high-minded note, which hobbit body part am I? )