Comments on: From Eminent Victorians to The Daily Show: The Art of Biography http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/ \"it must give pleasure\" -- Wallace Stevens Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:38:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: bloglily http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3362 Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:40:13 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3362 Jeff, I enjoyed your post. There’s something about these times that makes you wonder how anyone can react simply with words.

Hello Julie– I loved North & South and was thrilled to discover Gaskell, just when I thought there were no more good, big 19th century novels. (And if I’m remembering right, I think Nice Work (david lodge) is full of allusions to it.)

Uh-oh, Dorothy, now I’m wondering if I’ve led you to think Strachey is a laugh a minute — he’s not. But more entertaining than I’d thought.

Dear Litlove, I’m so glad to hear that Jon Stewart’s made his way across the Atlantic. He’s one of my great favorites. I download him from iTunes, hoard up the episodes and then have a huge gorge of snark, and cynicism, and sarcasm and feel oh so much better for a little while.

Fencer — Noone’s ever called anything I’ve written CHUNKY before. I’ll have to remember that!! Colbert cracks me up — I really like that little baton tossing thing he and Stewart do when the Daily Show ends, right before colbert begins.

Yes, Lucette, it’s great being able to read things without having to be held to account for them. Even writing this post about Strachey was a little too much like being a student again for my tastes. I think I’m going back to food and silliness for a while.

]]> By: Jeff http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3326 Sun, 10 Dec 2006 18:16:06 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3326 Lily, I was going to put a comment here, but alas, the comment grew so large I deemed it to be post worthy. You can find it here. Sorry I’ve been away recently. The move consumed most of my free time.

Cheers.

]]> By: Just when you think you have severe writer’s block « A Golden World http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3325 Sun, 10 Dec 2006 18:14:43 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3325 [...] Anyhow, BlogLily put up this post two days back, looking at the biographical analytical styles of Lytton Strachey and Jon Stewart. To delve into the comparison, I admit, I will have to read more Strachey to form a better viewpoint. However, something about the post took this assortment of thoughts I had from being a clever comment to either a gigantic comment which could very well tap a great deal of BlogLily’s bandwidth, or could actually be considered a post of it’s own. That something? One wonders: if Jon Stewart had different subjects with which to work, might he be able to rise above the eyebrow and really exploit his talent for wit, as Strachey did? [...]

]]> By: Julie http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3288 Sun, 10 Dec 2006 01:29:15 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3288 Hey Lily!
I’ve been reading a great book by a Victorian author — North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I’ve really enjoyed it — have you read any of her novels? She was married to a UU clergyman (I think); there is a real social consciousness in her work.

]]> By: Dorothy W. http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3281 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 23:56:37 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3281 I wouldn’t have expected Eminent Victorians to be an amusing book — how interesting it sounds.

]]> By: litlove http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3275 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 19:40:28 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3275 Wonderful post, Bloglily! In an odd moment of coincidence I saw the Jon Stewart show on TV last night – I’d never even heard of the guy before, and even from that brief viewing, I know just what you mean. However, I feel (in my cynical little way) that we just don’t have the kind of great reforming characters to call upon the way Strachey did. The people in the news are all too often pointless ‘celebrities’. I noticed he did have serious topic spokespeople on, and I saw that he was approaching what they did from a whole other angle, but now I wish I’d watched it more closely!

]]> By: fencer http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3270 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:56:23 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3270 I like your phrase “the deployment of the rhetoric of seriousness” a lot. Chunky!

That’s a wonderful association you bring together of the proper Victorians and our degenerative chaos today.

Do you ever watch the Colbert Report after The Daily Show? I think Colbert surpasses Stewart. He looks like he should be a pipe-smoking suburban dad from the ’50s, but instead he’s an insane mind satirizing people like Bill O’Reilly.

Regards

]]> By: lucette http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3267 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 17:16:08 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3267 I too read this long ago, for a class, and I ‘m thinking about reading it again, w/o having to analyse it and place it in context in modernism, etc.

]]> By: bloglily http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3260 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 16:13:14 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3260 Florence Court sounds like a great place to set a novel… one about a young woman who’s desperately trying to meet a great writer and goes to unusual lengths to do so!

]]> By: charlotteotter http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3256 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 15:12:33 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3256 Funnily enough, in the UK we lived in a reclaimed Victorian asylum called Florence Court, where the developers swore to us that the saintly Florence had actually nursed. It was a lovely place to live (high ceilings, sash windows, whiff of madness), and is still home to the much-esteemed author Hilary Mantel who I never managed to meet despite hanging out in the car park near her Audi, dropping library books out of my backpack.

But I digress … thanks for the insights into the history of biography Bloglily. I’ve never watched The Daily Show, but I’ve heard it’s very funny.

]]> By: bloglily http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3223 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:27:23 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3223 Hello Archie — You know, I think you’re right. It’s hard not to look at the results of these incompetent actions and the persistence of the Bush administration in pursuing them and not conclude something very bad is happening.

My dear Smokey, Well, their names do start with the same letter. I’m so fond of that moment when Jon Stewart looks nto the camera that I sometimes don’t even listen to what he might be saying. I’ll pay more attention to it, though!

]]> By: smokey http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3222 Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:24:03 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3222 Brilliant of you to associate Strachey and Stewart. I think it is certainly true that, when necessary, Stewart can also raise his verbal browbeating to the superb ironic and understated levels of Strachey. It would be fun to find out if he’s read the EVs. I wonder if his staff googles on his name and will find your essay. Thank you.

]]> By: archiearchive http://bloglily.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3220 Fri, 08 Dec 2006 22:05:57 +0000 http://bloglily.wordpress.com/2006/12/08/from-eminent-victorians-to-the-daily-show-the-art-of-biography/#comment-3220 What a wonderful contrast of two ages. The age of wonderful words and the age of inventive imagery. The only point I would disagree with you on is the status of the Bush Regime. You write of them, “people about whom there is no greatness, just banal and tragic incompetence.” This is indeed the public face and, tragic though it may be, the putative leader does indeed exude incompetence. Yet behind it all I sense an evil and malignant presence.

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