"Some books are so utterly bad..."
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It seems fair to say that Richard Avedon didn't do subtle. That was not his thing. Mind you, I never met the man. He has been dead for about twenty years, meaning there is no opportunity for me to ever meet him. But I can't think of a single photograph of his where I even remotely had the impression that something was communicated in a subtle fashion.
And that's OK, or rather that can be OK. That difference -- the difference between "that is OK" and "that can be OK" -- that's what I became interested in.
I only realized this just now, having written these words. That's writing for you: it tells you something about yourself.
Regardless, the other day, for reasons that are neither here nor there I decided to spend my evenings more fruitfully. Why would I whittle away precious time with the various attractions (or lack thereof) offered by my phone when I could, instead, read a book? For some reason, I remembered that I had an unfinished copy of Something Personal on my Kindle, a Richard Avedon biography that came out a few years ago.
I didn't remember why I bought it, and I didn't remember why I stopped reading it until I went back to it. How can I say this? Maybe as follows: if reading People magazine brings you joy, then this biography (let's generously call it that) will do, too. I'm not one of those people, so I decided -- again! -- to stop wasting my time on this book.
Before I picked it up again (mind you metaphorically: how do you pick up something that exists only in digital form?), I thought that if I were to get insight into Avedon's photography, then reading the biography would be worthwhile.
You see, I'm actually not that interested in either Richard Avedon (or anyone else for that matter). Or maybe I should write that in general, I find reading biographies tedious. They usually offer way too much information about things I'm not interested in (childhood friends, petty grievance, and whatever else). Furthermore, I'm a private person, and the thought of peaking into someone else's life strikes me as distasteful.
Thus I don't really need to know about Richard Avedon's friends or whom he slept with or what he bragged about or any of these things. Something Personal is basically just a collection of that. It's rather breathlessly reported in a fashion for which the word uncritical would be much too mild. It's hagiography plain and simple.
If you really need to know more about the book, read Richard Woodward's take (which, alas, I missed before I bought it).
I had made it far enough into the book, though, to come across the time when Nothing Personal was made. There also were recollections (if that's the word) for the time when Avedon photographed his father. I was and still am very interested in both, because of that difference I mentioned much earlier, the difference between something being completely in your face being OK or possibly being OK.
But there's another biography of the man, written by Philip Gefter and published a few years after the earlier one. I know, this feels like throwing good money after bad (and quite literally so), but I decided to get a copy of that one as well.
I have just moved, so I didn't want to bring another physical object into my house that I might have to give away after having read it. But there were no digital copies to be bought. So I spent about $4 on a used copy (no offense to Gefter, of course: $4 might reflect the depth of my interest in Avedon -- or maybe my general feeling for how useful the exercise will end up being). The book still is in the mail, so I can't tell you anything about it.
One thing, though: Look at those cover pictures! The former scientist in me begs to be careful, given there are only two pictures. Statistically speaking, that's too small a sample. And yet, here we have two pictures of Richard Avedon posing with his (reading?) glasses. What gives? If I had been the photographer on either of those occasions, I would have told the man to get his damn glasses out of the frame.
I'll have to see whether reading Gefter's book will bring me closer to understanding more about, say, Nothing Personal. I think that it's a really good book. I'm currently also thinking that the fact that it's really good is mostly accidental: Avedon didn't do subtle, and this is the one topic where not doing subtle and shoving the Nazis into people's faces will do the trick (in case you don't know this, there is a photograph of American Nazis in the book). Also, the essay by James Baldwin is (of course) very good.
If I'm correct (I might not be), then it would be entirely besides the point whether Avedon was actually a political person or not (the biographer of the gossip book claims he was not). And this would be very interesting for all kinds of reasons. But I'm guessing right now. Given there is the Gefter book, I might as well read that first and see where it takes me.
Speaking of biographies, this review of an Elon Musk book is really good. And very brutal ("Some books are so utterly bad that the case against them can be made based on almost any excerpt. Elon Musk is one of those books."). And very funny.
Instead of focusing on Musk (why bother?), Sam Kriss focuses on the idea of biography and books themselves -- and those who write them.
I think that's good. I had never thought about this aspect, but it seems apt: we do not read biographies just because we're curious. We read them to get something out of them for ourselves.
One might as well dive into that.
Or maybe that's just me, the kind of person who reads not one but two Avedon biographies... Well, OK, I read a bit less than half of one, but still... Anyway: ... to figure out something about the photographer and his pictures.
Reading the review of the Musk book reminded me of what I encountered in the Avedon gossip book. The photo sessions with his father -- who had left his family and with whom the photographer son had a very contentious relationship -- gets just a few short paragraphs. That's where the meat is, or some of it anyway. Instead, the author won't shut up about some party on the Bahamas (or wherever that was) that caused some ruckus for reasons that I've already forgotten. I guess that's what people want: the celebrity gossip -- not the hurt.
Feel free to let me know of any good books you've read recently! I'm always eager to expand my horizons. After I stopped reading the gossip book, I started to read an older book about tragic Japanese (anti-)heroes -- that's a good one. I'll tell you about it some other time.
As always thank you for reading!
-- Jörg