On Writing the Biographical Novel
Two Stone's are easy to confuse with one another until you turn them over. The writer who delivered the remarks we point to here is briefly described here:
STONE, IRVING (1903-1989)
Irving Stone, b. San Francisco, July 14, 1903, d. Aug. 26, 1989
Worked in the "biographical novel." genre. Stone wrote several novels, recounting the lives of well-known historical figures. Artists such as Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961), writers such as Jack London in Sailor on Horseback (1938), or political figures such as Eugene Debs in Adversary in the House (1947).
Stone interspersed biography with fictional narrative on the psychology and private lives of his subjects. He wroteexcellent biographies of Clarence Darrow (1941) and Earl Warren (1948) and short biographies of men who lost presidential elections (1943).
Bibliography:
Jackson, Joseph Henry, Irving Stone and the Biographical Novel (1954);
Newquist, Roy, Counterpoint (1964).
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The other Stone, 'Izzy' F. Stone was even further to the left than the young biographer above when Irving Stone wrote the Darrow book. But the former was a journalist and the latter a novelist. That is, that's what each was mainly about. So let's not get confused:
Stone, I. F., 1907–89, American journalist, b. Philadelphia as Isidor Feinstein. He moved to New York City shortly after beginning his career as a journalist. He served as an editor of The Nation (1940–46) and subsequently worked on a series of daily newspapers. In 1953 he began his own journal, I. F. Stone's Weekly, which in 1967 became I. F. Stone's Bi-Weekly. A determined opponent of the Cold War and domestic loyalty measures in the 1950s, Stone was one of the most influential liberal journalists of the postwar period. Late in his life he wrote The Trial of Socrates (1989), a product of his study of classical Greek in his later years.
Irving Stone (not 'I.F.") was prolific, responsible for titles such as "The Global Export of Capital from Great Britain, 1865-1914: A Statistical Survey" as well as "Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh."
Stone's narrative on the historic Pullman strike, Chicago's earliest and most important labor revolt of 1894 is striking because it is a neat job of describing the background and the biography of both Darrow and Debs. Like the Debs trial, it tells you why desperate strikers went out against the armed camp of the US military and the company thugs. The passage is in the second chapter of "Clarence Darrow for the Defense."
(a commercial display of Irving Stone titles can be found by clicking on this LINK)
Quotes from the 1957 Irving Stone speech on writing biographical novels ( available online HERE ) --
IRVING STONE QUOTES REGARDING THE BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL
It also follows that the biographical novelist must be a fighter. Frequently the best stories, and the most meaningful, are those of the underdog, of the man or woman who has been vilified and traduced. From the body of my own work may I suggest as examples the stories of Eugene V. Debs, Rachel Jackson and Mary Todd Lincoln (wives of US presidents).
All efforts to cut through the jungle of prejudiced print, to find the balanced, sympathetic yet judicious truth will be met not only with opposition but frequently with ridicule: for man is as unwilling to give up his vested interest in his prejudices as he is any other of his possessions.
. . .
Lastly, the biographical novelist must believe that first there came the Book; he must love books with an unflagging ardency, for he will spend the greater part of life with his nose inside one volume or another and some of them will be mighty tough customers. He must he able to survive the eyestrain engendered by tiny type, the headaches brought on by handling crumbling yellow pages, the fading ink of aged diaries and letters; and worse, the bottomless depths of Dead Sea writing which would break the teeth of any man imprudent enough to read it aloud.
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NOTES:
* I.F. Stone specialized in publishing information ignored by the corporate media (which he often found in The Congressional Record & other public documents overlooked & too hard to find by the big-circulation dailies).
Self-described "Jeffersonian Marxist," Stone combined progressive politics, investigative zeal & a compulsion to tell the truth with a commitment to human rights & the exposure of injustice. Not unlike George Seldes before him &
Noam Chomsky's work today, doing the job corporate media refuses to do.
http://www.fair.org/index/
http://www.igc.apc.org/an/book/alternetfuture7.html
http://www.salonmagazine.com/letters/1998/01/12letters.html
For a commentary that denounces I.F. Stone as a Stalinist, see the Philip Nobile note. Personally, I find that red-baiting and extreme. rjp / / / /
** Dave Berkman ( Shepherd Express) comment about I.F. Stone and US journalism in the 1940s to 1970s is worth a look-- Click HERE
for this quote:
"From the late '40s through the brief flowering of the "New Left" in the late '60s, the only expression that questioned our corporate-driven Cold War fixation emanated, ironically, from the principal figure most responsible for its promotion and management during the '50s. I'm referring, of course to President Eisenhower's farewell address in January '61, when he warned America of the dangers of its dominance by "the military-industrial complex."
"When a backlash developed in the late '70s to the brief, "New Left"-originated opposition to the Vietnam War, the stage was set for the election of a fiercely pro-militaristic Reagan/Bush presidency with the press solidly lining up behind our absurd ventures into Grenada, Panama and Iraq."
Dear reader, thank your lucky stars that I didn't throw in a biography of the very-much alive film producer Oliver Stone as well! That is for another POST On the name Stone in general, all I can say is 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . .'.
