silly biographer, trix are for kids

so i'm reading this biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald right now, by Jeffrey Meyers. most of the time, i don't especially dig biographies because frequently the amount of detail involved in a thick tome of someone's life feels pretty unmerited and gets tedious after a while. particularly in the case of a writer, the biographer has a responsibility to make some insightful connections between the sordid personal details and their effect on the writer's art. without that, did the world really need to know that Fitzgerald regularly asked acquaintances if his penis was too small? so he had issues, not helped by Zelda's cruelly destructive criticisms. but how does that relate to his literary output, was it reflected in his male characters, in his recurring themes, in his chapter numbering scheme, what? Meyers's flaw is not his skills as a biographer, but his lack of skill in discussing literature analytically, which is critical for writing about a writer. otherwise, the reader (this one at least) is left with a flood of minutia and an unsatisfying feeling of "so what?" plus, my personal peeve with Meyers is his use of the word "antithesis" on every other page. "So-and-so was the antithesis of Fitzgerald / Guinevera / Zelda / Gatsby", etc. argh. maybe the Zelda biography will sit better, despite Meyers's preface writing it off as "feminist revisionist".

incidentally, i'm addicted to this online game Bookworm. find it here. shit, dude dont even *try* to beat my pr of 300,560 points. Grand Archivist reprezentin', punk.