George Moore, 1852-1933

Rating:
Summary: Only if you're interested in his love life
Review: I find this sort of biography of a novelist-of-ideas (or, indeed of any type of scholar) kind of odd. It seems to me that those who would be inclined to read a biography of George Moore are individuals who are attracted to his literary output and intellectual life. This lengthy book, however, is devoted almost entirely to the (to my mind only marginally interesting) question of whether Moore was Nancy Cunard's father. Neither the ideas that fired Moore's books, nor his luminous style is discussed either at length or with much insight. Did Moore obtain his theory (spelled out in "The Brook Kerith") that Jesus survived his crucifixion from Samuel Butler's "Fair Haven"? Did he subscribe to the conceptualism espoused in detail by Abelard in "Heloise and Abelard"? Was he, like Evelyn Innes, a fan of Saint Teresa-style mysticism? Did he ever recant the elitist anti-democratic sentiments in his early "Confessions"? There's almost nothing of any of this in Frazier's book. His search of Moore's writings is devoted almost entirely to looking for hidden messages to Lady Maud Cunard. Interestingly, Frazier's biography can be seen as a response to Tony Gray's equally shallow work on Moore of the mid-1990s, "George Moore: A Peculiar Man"--though the latter book is nowhere mentioned in Frazier's admittedly weightier effort. It was Gray's thesis that Moore "never kissed but told": that is, that -- in spite of his colorful stories -- Moore lived and died a virgin. Frazier spends a good portion of his work demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that Moore was in fact sexually active. This kind of dispute may be of more than passing interest to those likely to want to read a biography of, say, Britney Spears, but one would think that Moore fans would prefer to see, e.g., early reviews of each of his books and the author's reactions to this press. I will give just one more example of the kind of critical gaps one finds in Frazier. In (I believe) the first volume of Moore's memoirs of the Irish literary revival movement, he mentions some correspondence with Edward Elgar regarding the possibility of the composer's turning out some incidental music for a play. Now, Moore was very interested in and knowledgeable about music: this is clear not only from his autobiographies but from several of his novels (particularly "Evelyn Innes"). But how did he get interested in Elgar (or D'Indy for that matter)? What pieces had he heard? Were his writings on early music performance accurate or did they reflect certain errors prevalent at the time? Was he - like many Wagnerians - hostile to Brahms and his followers? None of this stuff is discussed in Frazier. Hone's 1936 biography, for all its defects, remains the best work on Moore, and Frazier's new book, for all the advantages conferred by the passage of time since Moore's death, is little more than Liz Smith stuff for the Oxford set.

Rating:
Summary: Only if you're interested in his love life
Review: I find this sort of biography of a novelist-of-ideas (or, indeed of any type of scholar) kind of odd. It seems to me that those who would be inclined to read a biography of George Moore are individuals who are attracted to his literary output and intellectual life. This lengthy book, however, is devoted almost entirely to the (to my mind only marginally interesting) question of whether Moore was Nancy Cunard's father. Neither the ideas that fired Moore's books, nor his luminous style is discussed either at length or with much insight. Did Moore obtain his theory (spelled out in "The Brook Kerith") that Jesus survived his crucifixion from Samuel Butler's "Fair Haven"? Did he subscribe to the conceptualism espoused in detail by Abelard in "Heloise and Abelard"? Was he, like Evelyn Innes, a fan of Saint Teresa-style mysticism? Did he ever recant the elitist anti-democratic sentiments in his early "Confessions"? There's almost nothing of any of this in Frazier's book. His search of Moore's writings is devoted almost entirely to looking for hidden messages to Lady Maud Cunard. Interestingly, Frazier's biography can be seen as a response to Tony Gray's equally shallow work on Moore of the mid-1990s, "George Moore: A Peculiar Man"--though the latter book is nowhere mentioned in Frazier's admittedly weightier effort. It was Gray's thesis that Moore "never kissed but told": that is, that -- in spite of his colorful stories -- Moore lived and died a virgin. Frazier spends a good portion of his work demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that Moore was in fact sexually active. This kind of dispute may be of more than passing interest to those likely to want to read a biography of, say, Britney Spears, but one would think that Moore fans would prefer to see, e.g., early reviews of each of his books and the author's reactions to this press. I will give just one more example of the kind of critical gaps one finds in Frazier. In (I believe) the first volume of Moore's memoirs of the Irish literary revival movement, he mentions some correspondence with Edward Elgar regarding the possibility of the composer's turning out some incidental music for a play. Now, Moore was very interested in and knowledgeable about music: this is clear not only from his autobiographies but from several of his novels (particularly "Evelyn Innes"). But how did he get interested in Elgar (or D'Indy for that matter)? What pieces had he heard? Were his writings on early music performance accurate or did they reflect certain errors prevalent at the time? Was he - like many Wagnerians - hostile to Brahms and his followers? None of this stuff is discussed in Frazier. Hone's 1936 biography, for all its defects, remains the best work on Moore, and Frazier's new book, for all the advantages conferred by the passage of time since Moore's death, is little more than Liz Smith stuff for the Oxford set.

Rating:
Summary: Deeply satisfying and moving; ranks near Ellmann and Edel.
Review: Unlike Yeats, Joyce, or James, George Moore did not have a strong and confident sense of his own identity, and has in consequence remained a rather dim and shadowy figure on the literary landscape of his time. Frazier has succeeded uncannily in getting inside Moore's skin, almost to the point of understanding him better than he understood himself. For the first time the many divergent facets of Moore's career come together in a coherent and gripping narrative. We see that though his enthusiasms, literary loyalties, and amorous propensities were as changeable as the clouds above Lake Carra, Moore was tenacious in a Quixotic quest for truth and freedom. His witty, indiscreet conversation, still so fresh in the pages of Hail and Farewell, Avowals, and Conversations in Ebury Street, was calculated to puncture many a pompous ego. A master of ridicule, he was repaid in kind. But a lifetime of struggle against British philistinism, Irish parochialism, and French cliquism cannot be written off as mere clowning. Moore often let himself down, yet his achievement as a whole deserves the epithet "heroic." Had Irish Catholics and Nationalists, in particular, listened to his enlightened critique, they might have spared themselves a century of repression, mystification, and violence. Frazier illuminates Moore's sexuality (especially his relationships with Pearl Craigie and Lady Cunard) with Starr-like thoroughness. This serves to enhance our appreciation of his fiction: masterpieces such as Muslin, The Lake (1921 version), and In Single Strictness take on a new glow as we discover the erotic humus from which they spring, while the lesser or flawed works take on new interest as fragments of a great confession. Frazier has buried the George Moore of stale gossip and caricature and replaced it with a portrait as distinguished as Manet's on the front cover -- a portrait securely grounded in wide-ranging historical research.

Rating:
Summary: Deeply satisfying and moving; ranks near Ellmann and Edel.
Review: Unlike Yeats, Joyce, or James, George Moore did not have a strong and confident sense of his own identity, and has in consequence remained a rather dim and shadowy figure on the literary landscape of his time. Frazier has succeeded uncannily in getting inside Moore's skin, almost to the point of understanding him better than he understood himself. For the first time the many divergent facets of Moore's career come together in a coherent and gripping narrative. We see that though his enthusiasms, literary loyalties, and amorous propensities were as changeable as the clouds above Lake Carra, Moore was tenacious in a Quixotic quest for truth and freedom. His witty, indiscreet conversation, still so fresh in the pages of Hail and Farewell, Avowals, and Conversations in Ebury Street, was calculated to puncture many a pompous ego. A master of ridicule, he was repaid in kind. But a lifetime of struggle against British philistinism, Irish parochialism, and French cliquism cannot be written off as mere clowning. Moore often let himself down, yet his achievement as a whole deserves the epithet "heroic." Had Irish Catholics and Nationalists, in particular, listened to his enlightened critique, they might have spared themselves a century of repression, mystification, and violence. Frazier illuminates Moore's sexuality (especially his relationships with Pearl Craigie and Lady Cunard) with Starr-like thoroughness. This serves to enhance our appreciation of his fiction: masterpieces such as Muslin, The Lake (1921 version), and In Single Strictness take on a new glow as we discover the erotic humus from which they spring, while the lesser or flawed works take on new interest as fragments of a great confession. Frazier has buried the George Moore of stale gossip and caricature and replaced it with a portrait as distinguished as Manet's on the front cover -- a portrait securely grounded in wide-ranging historical research.