Nearer the grass roots Book

I have been avoiding the genre pretty successfully before reading this particular biography. And I know I'll probably still do for some after reading it, but this book made me think that I might want to try to give the habit a second thought. Its bulk is very well researched and personal, at least in the sense that it shows that writing it mattered more to Mr Field than finishing it. It opens up a bright field, full of details, which I didn't know I needed to know about one of my favourite authors. And it doesn't lose focus by falling into the trap of believing to understand the man simply by weaving a delicate fabric out of externalities such as are the events of and testimonies about somebody else's life. Edmund Wilson's taking a somewhat lengthy appearance in the last chapter reminded me of Chernyshevsky in The Gift's famous Chapter Four — you don't quite understand why it is there and where it went when it's over. But overall I was pleased with the structure, which is chronological without starting with a birth and ending with the present moment. (The book was published 10 years before Nabokov's death in 1977.)