Reviews for Bach A Biography

The average rating for Bach A Biography based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-11-16 00:00:00 Donnalynn Dolan I have this huge, weird love for horrible bastards. I don't know why. I always have. It all stems back to really liking Gargamel from The Smurfs. I think that's why I like Lord Alfred Douglas so much. The author of this book probably likes evil villians also. And he's one himself. I'll explain. Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas was the Golden Boy who brought down Oscar Wilde. This biography of him is very well written and researched. For starters, the author is 27 now and started writing it when he was 14 years old. He did an amazing job researching a rather obscure life and the first half of the book is incredibly engaging and gives a very fair look into Bosie as a person. He brings up some very valid points and really does express that Bosie wasn't as horrible and evil as many people think him (he's just your typical spoiled, jaded, bitch). In fact, he did heavily support Wilde for some time when he was released from prison. He also stood by him and defended him for a long period of time. I disagree with the author, however, on the point that Douglas was one of the best poets of his generation. His stuff is cringe-worthy terrible. Bosie was less the Shakespeare of his generation and more like the Conor Oberst of his generation. Bosie was seriously more emo than Bright Eyes and his emo-poems are nearly as god-awful. Also, as he grew older he converted to Catholicism (which reminds me of what a friend of mine once said: "when I'm old I'm either going to end up crazy or Catholic". Bosie ended up both). He also was responisible for translating the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (one of the most, if not the most Anti-Semitic pieces of garbage ever written and one of the most influential books for Hitler). He was a raging bigot not to mention a pederast. When he was still a practicing homosexual (as opposed to a closeted one) his favorite thing was to seduce schoolboys. He was basically an all around horrible person. Speaking of all-around horrible people...Douglas Murray (the author) is an enthusiastic Neo-Conservative. He is anti-multi-culturalism and if you look him up on Youtube you'll be appaled at some of the things he espouses. It sounds like he and Douglas had a lot in common.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-03-26 00:00:00 Trevor Bates Boise, Alfred Douglas, was a factor in the fall and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde. Douglas Murray’s book attempts to rescue Douglas from being known just for one thing – as Wilde’s boy toy – as well to restore Boise’s reputation as a poet. Sadly, there is something off about the book. Murray does have a point in the whole Wilde/Boise affair. At that point, Boise was young and spoiled. He didn’t hold a gun to Wilde’s head, and Wilde was the married man and father. Yet this point aside Murray does not really succeed in what he sets out to do. Part of the problem is the sense of vacuum. The book is about Boise, and mostly Boise there really isn’t much sense of the time he lived in or the people who formed part of his story. While background is given about his parents, this is one of the few times that such detail is given. For instance, when Boise’s elder brother’s wife dies it only gets a mention when his brother remarried in the next sentence. When talking about the animosity between Ross and Douglas, Murray chalks it up to simple jealous on the part of Ross, an argument that is hard to fully buy because Murray doesn’t really give any sense of the relationship between Ross and Wilde, but to say they slept together at least once. He also implies that Wilde engaged in homosexual behavior because Wilde and his wife stopped having intercourse as a form of birth control. While such conclusions might be true to present them with little to no support makes them dangerously simplistic. Another problem is the double standard and Boise as the only honest person. When writing a biography about someone who has been the target of potshots, there is always the danger of making the subject a sinned against saint. While Murray doesn’t go this far, he does come too close. This is due to two things. The first is that he makes it appear that Boise was the only friend to stand by Wilde upon release from prison. He does this, in part, by condemning Constance Wilde for refusing to give her husband an allowance unless he broke it off with Boise. Basically, we are led to be, she is being judgmental and unfair. But this is put forward in a vacuum (Wilde’s fall in this book seems to have had limited impact on his family), and that is part of the problem. The second is the account of Douglas’ translating the Protocols of the Elders of Zion into English. While it is true that Anti-Semitism was viewed differently, why does this only get a very brief paragraph? Why should we avoid judging him when we are encouraged to judge Constance and others who condemn homosexuality by today’s standards? In fact, this almost cynical and dismissive view of women is consistent. Douglas’ wife is no more than a pawn of her father. Again, there is a vacuum in the detail. And we are to view Wilde’s affair with Boise differently than we are to view Boise’s affair with a young man. This episode in the biography occurs when Boise is older and has converted Catholicism – so why a homosexual affair, Murray doesn’t really say. The other main thrust of the book is that Boise is an overlooked poet, who might have been greater than Wilde in some cases. He really doesn’t prove this, and the poetry that he does quote, is rather mediocre. The focus on poetry accounts for the vacuum that weakens the book.