SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH BOOKS

In this startling and ingenious “biography” of Lazarus, told with a light, often humorous touch, Richard Beard defies the limits of “biography” by mixing known elements from the Gospel of John (and from historical research) with elements from his own imagination. Often “proving” his theories about the relationship of Lazarus and Jesus by drawing on the equally fertile imaginations of many other novelists and artists, who have also explored the story of Lazarus, Beard then adds additional elements of fantasy, where necessary, to flesh out the story and make his points. The result is a unique look at the life of Lazarus – and of Jesus – which will surprise and delight readers who have a flexible view of scripture and a sense of perspective, if not humor. I hasten to add here that Beard is not in any way writing a satire or a farce, and he is especially careful in his presentation to avoid any sense of disrespect toward the religious context of his story – he is simply offering some alternatives to a contemporary reader while giving new meaning to the term “fictionalized biography” as he depicts Lazarus.

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Mario Vargas Llosa opens this fictionalized biography of Roger Casement as Casement awaits a decision on his application for clemency from a death sentence. As he reconstructs Casement’s life as a reformer and advocate for benighted native populations being exploited by various countries and corporations, he returns again and again to Casement throughout the novel as he rethinks every aspect of his life. Casement concludes, in most cases, that he acted honorably – or tried to. An advocate for indigenous populations exploited by governments and corporations, Casement has revealed the horrors of the Congo under the rule of Leopold II, and of Amazonia at the turn of the century, when a Peruvian entrepreneur controls vast quantities of land over which he has total control. His rubber company has many London investors. Ultimately, Casement believes that the Irish who are being ruled by the British have similar problems to indigenous populations, and he acts against the British and must face the consequences.

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Considering the esoteric subject matter, the hypnotic charm of this biography comes as a complete surprise. Though I had expected the book to be good, I had no idea how quickly and how thoroughly it would engage and ultimately captivate my interest. Through this sensitive author/artist, the reader shares the quest for information about five generations of his family history, delights in the discovery of his family’s art collecting prowess, and thrills at his ability to convey the charms of a collection of 264 netsukes from the early 1800s. Despite the sadness that accompanies the Anschluss in Vienna and leads to the loss of the family’s entire financial resources, the novel is far from melancholic. Ultimately, he connects with the reader, who cannot help but feel privileged to have been a part of this author’s journey of discovery.

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Using documents and photographs that have never before been available, along with private diaries and interviews with some of those who knew the subject, Idina Sackville, author Frances Osborne creates a lively, readable, and well researched biography which attempts to understand what aspects of her early family life might have helped create a person so flamboyant, sexually adventurous, and hedonistic that she became world famous, just for being who she was. The author has special reason to ponder this subject. When she was thirteen, The Sunday Times began a serialization of James Fox’s White Mischief, a detailed account of Happy Valley and the British aristocrats who had participated in the “mischief” in Kenya. Frances and her twelve-year-old sister Kate devoured each installment as it came out. “Was this the secret to being irresistible to men,” she wondered, “to behave as this woman did, while ‘walking barefoot at every available opportunity’ as well as being ‘intelligent, well-read, enlivening company’?” One afternoon, with a twinkle in his eye, her father told his embarrassed wife Davina that it was time for her to come clean. Davina had to admit to her daughters that she was the granddaughter of Idina Sackville, and they themselves were Idina’s great-granddaughters.

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From the explosion of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, to the killings of prisoners by the Cubans and Spanish in the aftermath of the Protocol of Peace on August 12, 1898, American news correspondent Sam Carleton records his day-by-day actions during the Spanish-American War. Sam Carleton is only “six weeks into his twenty-seventh year” when he arrives in Cuba, a five-foot six-inch, one hundred-twenty pound man with a bad cough, who feels that “his literary future is behind him.” The author of a book about the Civil War published in 1895, Carleton, a pseudonym for author Stephen Crane, had abandoned the idea of war as an epic, full of heroes making courageous decisions and willingly sacrificing their lives for a cause. Instead, he focused on the specific – the small, personal aspects of daily life among ordinary Union soldiers – describing how the soldiers feel, what they are thinking, and even, in some cases, their fear. Time moves back and forth, in and out of the past, and in and out of Carleton’s imagination as his story of the Spanish-American war takes place. Another story evolves in parallel with the story of Sam Carleton. Appearing and reappearing without warning throughout this novel, George Fleming, son of Henry Fleming from The Red Badge of Courage, accompanied by Esther Slone, travels to a collapsed mine in western Pennsylvania to help rescue sixty trapped miners. Filled with facts about the life of Stephen Crane, all of which are included in footnotes at the end of the book, the novel creates a powerful picture of Crane’s life.

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