20
PARTISAN REVIEW
Popham revealed the hopelessly romantic side of hi s character. His des–
perate longing for love-a theme in all his novels-lies at the core of his
life and work, and was responsible for his deathbed marriage to Sonia,
the model for Julia in
Nineteel1 Eighty-Four
(and for Molly, by the way,
in
Animal Farm).
The Orwell who emerges from my book is darker than
the legendary figure. He had a noble character, but was also violent,
capable of cruelty, tormented by guilt, masochistically self-punishing,
and sometimes suicidal.
Edith Kurzweil:
Our next speaker is Michal Govrin, an Israeli writer,
poet, and theater director. She has published six books of fiction and
poetry, and many essays on the theater, the Holocaust, and contempo–
rary Jewish theology. Her novel,
The Name,
received the
1997
Kugel
Literary Prize and was nominated for the year
2000
Koret Jewish Book
Award. Her talk is entitled "The Case of the Jewish Biography. "
Michal Govrin:
Thank you, Edith, for the invitation to come all the way
from Jerusalem via New Jersey for these fascinating two days. I'm going
to share with you some thoughts and questions set by our topic, in the
impressionistic mode of an oral delivery.
Coming from Israel, where the genre of biography is much less pop–
ular, almost nonexistent, in comparison with the phenomenon in the
United States, I feel that my role in this conference is to raise some sus–
picion concerning the validity, autonomy, or originality of these genres.
This suspicion is especially important at a time when biographies have
become a modern form of hagiography. Biographies, autob iographies,
and memoirs are perceived as "exemp lary" stories with which both the
writer and the reader are supposed to identify. Stories that arouse envy
or awe of "remarkable" lives that transcend or transgress the ordinary
and anonymous. Lessons of how to lead a life by certain power, by cer–
tain achievement-moral, spiritua l, material-as revealed through the
life stories of literary figures, celebrities, crimina ls, or tycoons. Even a
television advertisement for Coca-Co la is a mini-biography, a hagiog–
raphy of those beautiful modern saints on the screen. They show us
what "the taste of life" is, and we are called to believe them and con–
sume their advertised promise. This power of exemplary "l ife stories"
that teach us, that tell us "how to live," is an ancient tool in propagat–
ing power systems-reli gious, ideological, political, or commercial–
systems that demand our suspicion and resistance.
Therefore, I' ll put forward some questions ahout biography, asking
what is written first-the "bio" or the "graph"? Does life precede the
