Reviews for George Meredith

The average rating for George Meredith based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-09-27 00:00:00 Joe Silva 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.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-06-03 00:00:00 Sachiko Morrison The Life of Samuel Johnson is many things: charming, witty, vivacious, absorbing, edifying, beautiful; part philosophy and part history, with some politics and religion on the side. It is ironic, then, that one of the few things it most definitely is not is a biography. James Boswell was not interested in creating a record of Johnson's life, but a portrait of his personality. As a result, Boswell rapidly plowed through the time of Johnson's life that the two weren't acquainted'the first fifty years'and dedicated the bulk of the book to the time that the two were friends'the last twenty years of Johnson's life. The book is less a narrative than a collection of quotes and anecdotes. In fact, a much more accurate title of this book would be The Idle Talk of Samuel Johnson. If a book of this format had been written by almost any other person in the history of the world, I'm sure it would be unreadable. But Boswell has such a fine knack for suggestive details, for memorable quotes, for personality quirks'in short, for all the subtle and charming details of daily life'that the book is not only readable, but compulsively readable. Boswell's Life is a testament to the fact that the idle talk of a drawing room can be just as momentous as the ebb and flow of human history, or the thoughts of the greatest philosophers. It is a celebration of the epic in the everyday, the magnificent in the mundane. Not to say that Johnson is either everyday or mundane. Quite the opposite: he is as great a character as any in literature. Nay, more so. Because this book was so obviously the product of a fan-boy mentality, I have no idea what Johnson the man was actually like. But Boswell's characterization of him couldn't be surpassed, or even equaled, by the most skillful of novelists. Accurate or not, it is damned fine writing. What really gives fire to this otherwise mundane collection of anecdotes is Boswell's near-insane hero worship. Every mild opinion, every offhand quip, every casual remark uttered by Johnson is treated by Boswell as gospel. His reverence for the man is boundless; and his idolatry comes through in every sentence. It's endearing at first; almost overpowering by the end. Boswell makes the man into a myth, and the myth into a man. Nonetheless, it is, at times, hard to see what Boswell sees in Johnson. For every piece of wisdom or wit that Johnson produces, there are three pieces of folly. He hated the Scotch, the French, the Americans'basically everyone who wasn't both an Englishman and a Tory'all for no reason whatsoever. No good reason, anyway. He was socially, religiously, and politically conservative. He was rude, overbearing, and often closed-minded. He would argue a point that even he didn't endorse, merely to command a conversation. And Boswell doesn't appear very likable, either. He was servile, toadyish, and invasive. However much he may have reverenced Johnson, Boswell did not respect the man's privacy or confidence. In fact, it sometimes felt like Boswell's entire purpose of hanging around Johnson was to advance his own literary career; and that his idealization of Johnson was just a form of self-service, since he was connected with the deceased writer. I can't imagine having someone like that around me, hurrying off to jot down every thing I said'not that I'm at risk for such a thing. Besides the unpleasantness of the two principal characters, this book has other flaws. Its most notable one is its lack of organization. Boswell just moves from one quip to the next, interspersing conversations with Johnson's letters and diary entries. Boswell was incomparable for his attention to detail; but he apparently was unable to step back and see the forest, rather than just the trees. Even Johnson's death is rendered as a series of disconnected pieces of information, rather than a simple narrative. In short, Boswell saw life through a magnifying glass; and it's hard to put together a map with a magnifying glass. But this is not a book that attempts to conceal its flaws. Rather, it glories in its own imperfection. And, now that I think of it, the most important message of Boswell's book might be this: that the greatest things in life are great precisely because of their imperfections. Boswell's Life of Johnson certainly is.