Lives of the Novelists Audiobook By Carl Rollyson cover art

Lives of the Novelists

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Lives of the Novelists

By: Carl Rollyson
Narrated by: Thomas D. Hand
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

Is there a right way to write a literary life? In this collection of columns from the New York Sun, Carl Rollyson explores the relationship between narrative and literary analysis. Should biographies be written in the style and form of novels? How do you balance the life and the work? How much literary criticism can a biography absorb into its narrative?

Rollyson proposes a number of apologias for biography, including the thought that in the right hands the literary biography is a continuation of the writer's work and life. In such instances, there seems to be a symbiosis between the biographer and subject. In other cases, biographies spearhead the rediscovery of important writers. He rejects the idea that literary figures are not good subjects for biography because they are not men and women of action. That literary biography is a kind of strip mining, a pathography laying bare the subject's life to no good purpose is another canard this book demolishes. The pieces here also expose the genre's weak points: a proclivity for overstatement and excessive length, and the failure of biographers to build upon their predecessors' work (Rollyson invents a term - biographology - in order to discuss the biographical tradition).

©2014 Carl Rollyson (P)2015 Carl Rollyson
Entertainment & Celebrities Celebrity
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Lives of the Novelists

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.