Bad Biography versus Good: James Herriot

I also discuss bad versus good biographies here. This particular review--for the last book on the A-Z List (Part 4)--is about James Herriot.

The review compares Graham Lord's biography of James Herriot to Jim Wight's biography of his father. I highly recommend the second; avoid the first.

Below is the review that I wrote on Amazon about Graham Lord's book. I comment on the review at the end.

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The most positive thing about [Lord's] book is that it shows you what Jim Wight (James Herriot's son) was up against when he wrote his memoir. I highly recommend Jim Wight's memoir for anyone who is interested in learning about James Herriot (Alf Wight).

I think Mr. Lord may have been well-meaning when he wrote James Herriot: Life of a Country Vet but the book is really appallingly bad [actually, I now think that Graham Lord was jealously trying to capitalize from a tiny bit of knowledge of Alf Wright/James Herriot].

Mr. Lord has no feel for the WWII period, has done no practical research, seems to have little to no perception of human character and relies almost exclusively on gossip and word-of-mouth. One gets the impression that Mr. Lord decided before writing his book what he was going to find and proceeded to twist or ignore any information to the contrary. He relies on those "witnesses" who will tell him what he wants to hear without taking into consideration the inherent complexity of human beings. Single witnesses do not capture the entire truth--it is a gross error in judgment to think that one person can fully, and accurately, explain another person.

Alf and Jim Wight

The lack of reliable facts results in Mr. Lord relying almost exclusively on guesswork, and the assumptions inherent in Mr. Lord's guesswork are almost all negative. For instance, he assumes that because he, Mr. Lord couldn't find evidence that Alf Wight's parents were musicians, ergo, they weren't, therefore Alf Wight was lying when he referred to his parents as professional musicians. The point may be debatable but in the interests of good writing, the assumption is not enough. If Mr. Lord wasn't willing to do the required research to prove the point conclusively one way or the other, he should have left it out. [Alf Wright conclusively shows through artifacts and a paper-trail that his grandparents were musicians who played professionally in local venues.]

Mr. Lord strikes one as the kind of man who is continually surprised by the inconsistencies of human nature. He reports with something like glee that Alf once told someone that his father died in 1961, instead of 1960. This becomes evidence for...the mind boggles. I'm not sure Mr. Lord himself has a clue what he is trying to accomplish in this book. Whatever it is, it suffers from an utter lack of scholarship and is therefore deeply insulting both to Alf Wight's memory and to the reader.

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At this later date, I think that Graham Lord was trying to "reveal" how "celebrities" twist "facts" to aggrandize themselves. Except, as Jim Wright shows, this is not how his father operated at all. James Herriot didn't change names, combine stories, and alter chronology to aggrandize himself or, even, remarkably enough, to make his life MORE DRAMATIC. He did it because he was part of a community; protection and self-protection required some degree of obfuscation. If one actually reads his books, rather than simply responding to him as a "celebrity", his natural, sweet self-effacement ("Okay, this is what I remember now about that event") shines through.

And Jim Wright points out how much his father actually didn't alter. Siegfried (Donald Sinclair) was in fact more extreme than even James Herriot paints him. The first season of the classic BBC series All Creatures Great & Small showcases the "real" Siegfried wonderfully. He is portrayed by one of my favorite actors of all time: Robert Hardy. Robert Hardy knew Siegfried (Donald Sinclair) and portrayed him accurately. He toned him down in later seasons due to the real man's grumbles. But everyone who actually knew the family agreed that James Herriot and Robert Hardy were faithful in their depictions.

I highly recommend The Real James Herriot by Jim Wight. A book written by a son about a father may sound too too maudlin, but in fact, Jim Wight is as level-headed, fair-minded, and fastidious in his writing as his father. The book is the book to go to . . .

After James Herriot's own books, of course.

The A-Z lists will continue in 2020. This time: Children's Picture Books!