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Biographer’s Mystique.



A biographer carefully puts the bits and pieces of a life time together, with refinement the body of work floats above the medium of writing and presents itself to the reader, a lifetime, not merely moments of fulfillment or the structured passage of time, but a lifetime. The biographer is not content with the little pieces of time capsules in which he interacts with the substance, or the present structure, instead the biographer proceeds to erase the links between the individual components and establish a steady routine that culminates itself into a concrete portrayal of the person but with loose ends. the biographer does not intend to shut the portrayal close, he does not make assumptions as to the closing or the opening of the life, for that would be singularly ineffective and put him at the risk of a work that would remain merely as a work of conscientious endeavor towards appeasement of the readers and slowly regresses into putting out the fire that resides inside the work, which the biographer consumes and becomes the object of this conflagration.

when a biographer ambitiously follows himself as an existence outside himself to capture the essence, the effect, and the moments that make the life, he is in a dilemma if to rest the biographer ‘I’ beside the passive ‘I’ or if he should merely assimilate the two ‘I’s together into observing activity, then cleverly dissociate when a noteworthy moment presents itself; but here, the biographer stumbles, the trot that could have galloped into chivalry now subjects itself to an inquiry of sincerity- who decides what is noteworthy?

Dry leaves and twigs spread across the road on a morning walk, the birds see sawing in a momentous morning glory, the freshness, the scent of wet mud after a drizzle, the flip flap of the old woman's slippers walking past him, the sun that tries to slip through the curvaceous leaves above as he rests after a tiresome walk. The stone that he picks up, flips over in a moment of ecstasy as if he found out the reason for living through the trying times, now he plucks at a grass stalk, gazes at it intently, he is mesmerized with the beauty of muddy roots and the clean stalk above. He measures up his life against the piece in his hand; how his freshness, his vanities and pleasures, his affections and attentions, how he has always tried to clean up his posture so his portrayal would be neat, seamless, and intensely presentable. He had been indulging all his life into supplying energy to these structures that he built around him, the glass shell through which he presented himself, impervious he was, impenetrable. While his object stayed indoors, his portrayal floated across and he was gratified, he was pleased when his structures manifestly bloated, and was distressed when he had to look at himself, for when he looked, even he, the person, was now only presented with his structures which were embellished beyond any recognition. His roots (I) were inside and his head (stalk) was outside.

Now, the biographer wonders, if he should pursue this tiresome course of philosophical routes, for the true intent of a biography is to present the writing to a reader so the reader feels the impulse; to lift his head, pause for a moment ever now and then, and contemplate as to the progression in the person, so the reader submits before the inquisition and lets his own life provide answers, so the reader measures, gauges the work as it presents outside the writing, as it exists outside the writing, not merely as the words or phrases in the writing, not merely the loneliness or the tempestuous colloquies the biographer presents in the writing. For what is a work that closes on itself; does it stand against the curious reader's psyche, does it inflame the reader's inquiry, so the biographer intends, with all his conscience, to let the lucidity of the presentation leave the work floating above the concrete writing strictures.

now it rains, at first slowly then blistering profusely, an inclined roof top lets the rain slip over to ground, where the water seeps leaving the mud wet, forming pools of muddy water here and there, and the muddy water carries with it a leaf, a cork, a chocolate wrapper, a paper boat and the biographer ‘I’ watches patiently the ‘I’ who submits himself to the nature's wonder, he watches as it stops raining now leaving the sky crystal clear and the walls of houses wet, and some of the old roof tops dripping. Now, water forming blots of confusing streams on the roof underneath, now a cloud parts with its partner revealing the blue above it, and the sun slips through just for a moment and the clouds unify again shutting the sun above them, only the traces of sun's presence is now felt. The air is cold and wet, trousers damp, skin electrifying. now the islands of sun form over the sea of cloud and sun beats on with vengeance and revenge, for it was shut out of its object of beauty, of the object that attracts its light, of the populace that wish he had become a substitute for rain (not always, for that would be an incurable obligation).
The biographer tells the tale after waiting impatiently beside the I, for the biographer waits for a moment of note worthy detail , but the moment never comes, and he mournfully, dejectedly indulges in the artistic definiteness of a prodigious ‘I’ that never ceases to submit himself; an ‘I’ that is so much in awe and wonder of nature, of the minute details, gives the biographer a task of multitudinous complicity for if the biographer is safely sat up beside this feverishly indulging ‘I’ that debunks the lucid confirmation of a biography, the biographer can never finish the work, so he decides to stand outside the realm of time, and watch as time passes.

but now, the biographer finds himself sadly preoccupied with the concreteness of work, and the lucidity is not gained out of it, for the ‘I’ that is artistic qualifies himself in fulfilled merry only in phases of his life that allures him with an artistic benefit, other times, he is merely living, like a dead man walking, and the work that puts up these passive subjections together, only brings about the passivity of work, and a reader is never gained out of it. for what use is a work to a reader, if it does not leave him with junctions here and there, where subject of concrete facts is juxtaposed beside abstract inclination, where the reader situates himself, to experience for a moment the togetherness of the feelings, the presence of complexity, he breathes, he pauses, takes relief in actually participating in the journey, through the states of blissful irony and through the states of mournful tragedies.

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