The Life of Samuel Johnson Book

This is a book which is not about a thing but is the thing itself. I think there's a complicated German philosophical term for that.

In the history books they will tell you Samuel Johnson is dead these 200 years, but I say No Sir. He's alive, here, right here. He's walking and talking and wringing the necks of fools right here.

In this book's oceanic vastness of pages Boswell the drunk, the fool, the butt of japes, the ignoble toady, creates the reality tv of 18th century London. There are verbatim conversations, many of them, whole eveningsworths of them. If Bozzy had had a camcorder he'd have done that but he didn't so he invented his own version of shorthand and made excuses every half an hour or so during the boisterous hours of high-powered debate with SJ & his pals and nipped off to the lavatory where he scribbled his hieroglyphs on his cuff or on a napkin. Like any reality tv show you get sucked into that world, so that even the boring bits are interesting. It helps that the language is so thrillingly grandiloquent and the people so piquant, so flavoursome.

Oh yes, even thought this biography is as long as Lord of the Rings, there are various bits that Bozzy didn't dare include, but that.s okay, he wrote them all down in his journals, which 150 years later were all published for our delectation, so you can get hold of everything. Such as the question of Samuel Johnson's sex life :

Excerpt from Boswell's journal published as "The Applause of the Jury"

LONDON, 20th April 1783

LOWE. I do not believe his marriage was consummated.

BOSWELL. Do you know, ma'am, that there really was a connexion between him and his wife? You understand me.

MRS DESMOULINS. Yes, yes sir. Nay, Garrick knew it was consummated, for he peeped through the keyhole, and behaved like a rascal, for he made the Doctor ridiculous all over the country by describing him running around the bed after she had lain down, and crying "I'm coming, my Tetsie, I'm coming, my Tetsie!"

In Life of Johnson, this is rendered into more acceptable language:

In particular the young rogues used to listen at the door of his bed-chamber, and peep through the keyhole, that they might turn into ridicule his tumultuous and awkward fondness for Mrs Johnson, whom he used to name by the familiar appellation Tetsie

When Johnson was alive, he was something of a one-man industry all by himself (Dictionary, Shakespeare, Rasselas, Idler, Rambler, Lives of Poets) and after he was dead it seems every other person in literary London wrote a book about him. There were two biographies before Boswell's, and his publishers were kind of anxious - "Come on Bozzy, you're being scooped here, let's get your book out and cash in while people still aren't sick of the name of the great Doctor" But Boswell was supremely confident in what he'd got, which was this book. He waited seven years to publish this Life, and when he did, everyone knew what it was : a masterpiece of world literature.

But : this may be a little distressing, but when you have finished Boswell's 1350 pages, you will probably then need to read an actual biography of Samuel Johnson, which, remarkably, this book really isn't. Because it's so Boz-centric, because Boswell knew what he had (the goods) and it made him a lazy arse who couldn't be bothered to find stuff out if he had to work for it. Because what had happened was that Boswell was a major SJ fan and wangled a meeting with SJ when he was 22 and SJ was 54. He got SJ to like him, he was a real groupie, but he lived in Scotland. So from age 54 until SJ died, i.e. another 20 years, Bozzy would use his two weeks of holidays to visit London and be with SJ. And those are the days and evenings we get in minute detail in this book. The first 54 years are written about with verve but with an obvious desire to crack on to the bit where Boswell himself enters the story. Boswell finds himself very interesting too.

You could really go mental if you want with all this stuff. You could read this vast thing, then you could read all of Boswell's journals - about twelve volumes. then you could read Johnson's account of A Journey to the Western isles of Scotland, then Boswell's version of the same trip, called Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides. Then as a corrective to all that, you could read Young Samuel Johnson by James Clifford, which is brilliant, and wind up with John Wain's magnificent actual biography of SJ.

You could also throw in Mrs Thrale's memoir too, which contains lots of gems, such as

ON SCOTLAND

A friend of that nation, at his return from the Hebrides, asked him what he thought of his country. "That is a very vile country to be sure, Sir." "Well, Sir", replies the other, somewhat mortified, "God made it."
"Certainly he did" (answers Mr Johnson) "but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen."

ON THE POOR

AN ACQUAINTANCE OF DR JOHNSON : "What signifies giving halfpence to common beggars? They only lay it out in gin or tobacco."



Note : this question is still brilliantly contemporary, people say it every time they pass a modern day beggar except gin or tobacco has become Diamond White and drugs. I myself have said this.



"DR JOHNSON : And why should they be denied such sweeteners of existence? It is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own existence. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer"

You could go on, and indeed, I would urge that you do, because, all disclaimers aside, I think you'll have a great time.