Ruth Scurr: belief

Transcript context

…Let’s say a talented young person, a prospective biographer, comes to you and they say, “Well, I’m thinking of having a life where I’m essentially a biographer, with some other job attached, maybe in academia.” You’re trying to figure out, “Does this person make sense as a biographer?” Other than the obvious — hard work, intelligence — what is it you look for in a good or great biographer, to spot one? You’ve got to be brave and completely open, in my view, to finding the form in which to tell the life. You can’t go in there with a workmanlike attitude saying, “I’m going to do cradle to grave,” or “I’m going to do it this — ” You’ve got to somehow connect and resonate with the life, and then things will develop from that. That would be my advice. But, you know, I’m not teaching biographical writing. I’m not sure I would be particularly good at that. I have friends who teach creative writing. I always had the deepest respect for it, but I can’t begin to imagine how you do it. I always think of Muriel Spark’s novel The Finishing School, which was her last novel, where she sends up a creative writing course with — and it’s so, so brilliant. It’s one perfect first paragraph, and she’s explaining how you’ve got to set the atmosphere (in the voice of the creative writing teacher) — you’ve got to set the atmosphere, you can say that the visibility is very poor, etc., etc. And she says, “It’s much too early to write, ‘Everything was covered by the (beep) fog.’” [laughter] What do you do, personally, to stay open as a biographer, if that’s such an important trait?…

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