Please take a look at my guest posting on the blog of the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum here. Includes an image of a painting I commissioned in 2014 for what turned out to be a bright, cubist take on one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s portraits of Johnson.
That’s the answer that Johnson gave to Boswell when he was asked how he could make any of his Rambler essays any better. It’s a good answer from a practical person and editor. Nothing is perfect. If you look back at anything you were quite pleased with when you first wrote or published it, you could probably find parts that could be cut (“put out”), added, or corrected.
I’m not at that stage yet with this biography of Johnson I am writing, but I made great progress today on putting some order and structure around the mass of information and research that I have already gathered for the book. It reminds me a bit of a short book called Less, about personal minimalism, that I published in 2013. With that book, I compiled the content in a way that I don’t usually do, that is, by brainstorming (I hate that word, but you know what I mean). It is a book about me and my minimalist habits and how they have an effect on how I deal with people, so I wrote down all I could think about from my own life about the topic. I ended up (ironically for the topic, of course) with too much information, and the challenge was to cut some out and to put the remaining bits in an order that would be understandable to the reader.
I did similarly today with the Johnson book. I finally — or, well, not necessarily finally, but this is what seems to work for now — finally decided how to incorporate into the book the various sections I plan to have where I delve deeper into certain aspects of Johnson’s character. The basic book itself will be in a pretty standard chronological order, but certain topics are of particular interest to me, and I will be writing about them at some length. Not too long, of course, as I have to keep my reader in mind, but in a certain sense this is one of the aspects of the biography that will make it different from many of the others that have been published. I’m not saying it’s (in the true sense of the word) unique, but it will be an aspect of the structure of the book that makes it different, makes it the book that I have written.
It’s been a good writing day, which started in the morning, was nicely interrupted by coffee and great conversation with a friend, and then continued this evening. In the course of it all, I had a reason to look at one of the great books by another 18th-century author, Jonathan Swift, that many people don’t know about, called A Tale of a Tub, published in 1704. Here’s a quote from that book that will be useful to my own project:
With knowledge it has fared as with a numerous army encamped in a fruitful country, which for a few days maintains itself by the product of the soil it is on, till provisions being spent, they send to forage many a mile among friends or enemies, it matters not. Meanwhile the neighbouring fields, trampled and beaten down, become barren and dry, affording no sustenance but clouds of dust.
I don’t find the blogging about my writing about Johnson is slogging. But I set up a convenient form on my website where people can contact me, or send comments, or whatever they might want to do. It is here for my Johnson site and here for my general website. I’m going to have to take down both forms because — and I am not sure how exactly this works on the web — they have mostly been hijacked by people trying to sell me something, or simply saying “I love your comment” or something like that, or generally sending me something that has nothing to do with having read one of my blog postings and wanting to send comment, or having looked through my site and wanting to do the same. I’m no expert in this, but I doubt whether it’s individual people hunting down the websites of writers and librarians whom they can harangue with pointless comment: it’s probably some kind of bot or program that sends the same message to thousands (or millions) and hopes for — hopes for what, I am not sure.
I received one last Thursday from Jacketige at yourmail@mail.com that kind of topped the lot of them. Not only did it have nothing to do with my site, but its contents seemed like the ravings of an unstable person (or literary genius?). The subject line was “80 % of females false it then” and it started like this:
in education, I kept to your neighbors into an agonizingly more or less drink waitress. late into the evening, in the aftermath of she had return home with operate, lady boyfriend he forced one specific hayundai, needless to say without doubt turn up with respect to his particular every night butt speak to. the entire rooms ended up being very thin. in a little while, as with clockwork, your woman’s singing ordinarily should pierce our drywall to provide a water vapor locomotive’s whistle: “Hehehehehe” and “Yesyesyes, and next a surge as to impressive pitched “Ohmigodohmigodohmigod, in addition to utilized jealous at the time, instantly apparently all this lady stoked vocals might have been just the female equivalent of “the couch presents itself nice living in individual tight pants or skirts, baby. trustworthy, a process of research for sale past month inside the microfiche about erotic routines implies that those apparently irrepressible “Ohmigods” for the duration of visible climax is actually learn performing arts designed “manipulate” men.
Maybe this is post-post-post modern literature that I don’t quite understand? Maybe it’s generated from some database? Maybe I should be worried about someone’s singing piercing my drywall and somehow providing water vapor for a locomotive’s whistle?
It ends with:
numerous, modern society and as well, as well as the social do not really relate to all of us suitable principles and lessons. research projects dependably train the fact that persons believe how to locate whatever another gender requires, but also that marilyn and i usually are other. and they turn up shopping to outguess various other. for this reason Muehlenhard believes that there may be nothing a challenge with will likely determine mind games maker present. we have a downside to so resonance. “it a problem to allow arousal industrial noise the moment one should be bored to death maybe in pain, the girl expressed. “that has to be preparing to convey falsehoods to an individual’s future spouse, Who most probably will consider that this sexual practice is amiable and really should be repeated the next occasion. I are convinced all together, dependability is better protection plan.
And now it sounds like those parody translations from Chinese, or those online translation sites that do their best to approximate English.
Anyway, as they say, it’s been a slice, it’s been fun, but I’ll be taking the forms down and replacing them with simple email addresses. I don’t know if this is a better or worse idea.
A well-researched introduction … This book features many of Johnson’s quotes, along with Jones’ accompanying learned commentary and historical context. Although the author doesn’t hide his admiration for his subject, he’s also unafraid to explore Johnson’s personal difficulties, including episodes of depression, and personal aspects, such as his sexual habits. As a biography that targets general readers, the book more than succeeds in its mission to offer an accessible account of Johnson’s life and work in fewer than 200 pages. Jones, the author of multiple books and a former academic librarian, is a skilled writer who carefully balances erudite literary analysis with an engaging writing style. The book’s impressive research is backed by a network of endnotes and a bibliography, both of which reflect a firm command over Johnson’s extensive work and relevant scholarly literature alike.
— KIRKUS REVIEWS
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… As an entry point into further reading aimed at general readers, Jones’ book explores Sam’s writing (his livelihood) and his person. Short “Digressions” from the chronology of major events, such as the failures (running a school) and the accomplishments in Sam’s life are segued between the chapters. The digressions serve to contextualize Sam in a colorful, historical snapshot of eighteenth-century Britain. The book turns readers on to Sam’s writing by explanation, historical interest, and tribute. His life is chronicled according to his writings. Foremost is one of the first-ever dictionaries … Another digression inquires into his dissatisfied sexual life and his both loving and tense relations with his wife and a good female friend. Full of facts as well as anecdotes, illustrations, and an index for further reading, this is an honest and compassionate portrayal of a lesser-known literary figure worth knowing more about.
— THE US REVIEW OF BOOKS