Dona Munker: Writing a Biography

October 25, 2011 1:32 PM EDT

You ask some terrific questions, Dona. I don't see myself reading the Jobs bio in the immediate future, but I do have some general thoughts about the author of a biography giving vent to his or her own feelings in connection with a living subject. Seems to me those feelings are valid, and should be expressed, possibly in a Foreword or an Afterword. In one way or another, no matter how much the writer wants to be objective, these personal emotions are going to help shape the way the story is told, and so I feel strongly that they should be acknowledged. By the way, Scott Berg's tribute to his friend Katharine Hepburn is specifically NOT billed as a biography, because Berg felt he was unable to achieve the distance he knew that biography required.

- Beverly Gray

October 26, 2011 6:08 AM EDT

What If Isaacson had let himself be guided more by his human feeling for Jobs' plight, rather than trying to be rigorously objective? Nocera's complaint is that the biographer was too close to have perspective, but also that the passion for the subject that inspires truly insightful language is missing from the Jobs biography.

Sounds like the problem may have been not only the biographer's feelings about the subject, but also his feelings about what a biographer's attitude should be (detached, objective, controlled). I'm wondering whether the writing might have gained if Isaacson could have let some of his compassion for Jobs, or even an identification with him, creep in?

Of course, neither of us is in a position to comment, since we haven't read the book! And maybe an attitude of detachment throughout was what Jobs inspired in his biographer. In writing biography, every single case is just that, an individual case.

- Dona Munker

October 26, 2011 8:13 AM EDT

Afterthought: Having read some observations on the book in the Scientific American posted by Charles Shields today, I'm inclined to think Isaacson's feelings in the end were probably the kind that wouldn't have led to the sort of insightful language Nocera wanted. More like swearing, maybe.

- Dona Munker