"To be sidetracked is, after all, to be led astray by a path or an idea, a scent or a tune, and maybe lost forever. But no true biographer would mind that, if he can take a few readers with him." And so, we are introduced to the theme of the work--soon to be reeled into the mysteries of Romantic writers, whose footprints have somewhat faded with time.
Just because time has passed, though, doesn't mean, that the writers are by any means forgotten. Their marks are indelibly left upon our minds. We can't help but wonder... What else have we missed? In following the sidetracks, Richard Holmes has wondered: "How much is constructed from broken evidence, a scattered bundle of letters, the chance survival of a diary? How much is lost, forgotten, changed beyond recognition? What secret thoughts are never recorded, what movements of the heard are never put into words?"
So, "This is the fragmented tale of a single biographical quest," Holmes explains, "a thirty-year journey in search of the perfect Romantic subject and the form to fit it." His search takes him through writers of diverse nationalities and backgrounds, from France to England, and even to America. His search brings him to write about Thomas Chatterton, Monsieur Nadar, "poor" Pierrot, Charles Robert Maturin, Montague Rhodes James, John Stuart Mill, Lord Lisle, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Scrope Berdmore Davies, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Voltaire, James Boswell, and all of the sidetracks that fall somewhere in-between.
So, "This is the fragmented tale of a single biographical quest," Holmes explains, "a thirty-year journey in search of the perfect Romantic subject and the form to fit it." His search takes him through writers of diverse nationalities and backgrounds, from France to England, and even to America. His search brings him to write about Thomas Chatterton, Monsieur Nadar, "poor" Pierrot, Charles Robert Maturin, Montague Rhodes James, John Stuart Mill, Lord Lisle, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Scrope Berdmore Davies, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Voltaire, James Boswell, and all of the sidetracks that fall somewhere in-between.
Stories That Write Themselves
The pathways by which biographies are created don't always reveal themselves in living color. The books and stories almost seem to write themselves, drawing the phrases from the depths of who they were and what they had created. It should not be thought that a writer can ever be fully forgotten. As long as there is a fragment of a work, moldering in the depths of some library, chances are good that the true mysteries will be revealed again, that connections will be made, that new biographies will be written.
It's not to breed controversy that such texts are written, though scandals and other sordid affairs take part in the lives of many of these great writers. Certainly, by recognizing the struggles these writers went through, we gain a better understanding and contextualization of the works left behind. But, more than understanding the influence of the writer's life on their work, we understand how the writer's philosophy and how the very fact that the person existed affects us even today... even if we don't realize it.
The pathways by which biographies are created don't always reveal themselves in living color. The books and stories almost seem to write themselves, drawing the phrases from the depths of who they were and what they had created. It should not be thought that a writer can ever be fully forgotten. As long as there is a fragment of a work, moldering in the depths of some library, chances are good that the true mysteries will be revealed again, that connections will be made, that new biographies will be written.
It's not to breed controversy that such texts are written, though scandals and other sordid affairs take part in the lives of many of these great writers. Certainly, by recognizing the struggles these writers went through, we gain a better understanding and contextualization of the works left behind. But, more than understanding the influence of the writer's life on their work, we understand how the writer's philosophy and how the very fact that the person existed affects us even today... even if we don't realize it.
In writing about these literary greats (and even the somewhat forgotten ones), Holmes creates his own legacy. As Holmes says, "I hope it will encourage others to turn aside, to reconnaitre, to stray purposefully into the vast geography of the human heart by which we come to know ourselves."
After all, we all make our own paths (or sidetracks) along the way.
After all, we all make our own paths (or sidetracks) along the way.
