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Book Review: Twofers

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By AMY SMITH LINTON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 2, 2008

"Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln," by John Stauffer (Twelve, $30)

"The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War," by David Lebedoff (Random House, $26)

All too often, a biography skims through a life, giving the reader a patchy, unsatisfying look at a subject. On the other hand, how does a writer encapsulate key events and distill the most important influences of a particular historical figure? In two new biographies, the authors tackle this challenge by doubling up.

John Stauffer pairs the president during the American Civil War with the most outspoken abolitionist of his time in "Giants." Frederick Douglass was a self-made, self-educated man, as was Abraham Lincoln. Both the former slave and the president stood head and shoulders, physically, above their foes. And although they followed parallel roads from their hardscrabble childhoods, their politics were not - despite what one might recall from high school civics class - quite on par. Douglass' moral certainty never wavered on the issue, but Lincoln struggled deeply with the idea of abolishing slavery.

In "The Same Man," author David Lebedoff suggests that George Orwell (author of "1984," "Animal Farm" and many fiercely intelligent essays) and Evelyn Waugh (known best for his novel "Brideshead Revisited") were, at heart, the same man. Born in 1903, both grew up in roughly the same situation, as outsiders in the British private-school world. Both had driving ambitions that made them stand out from their peers. Their paths diverged, however, in where these ambitions sent them: Waugh was fascinated with the society of the most privileged, while Orwell spent the majority of his time working and tramping with the lowest classes, writing about hellish work conditions and railing against the dangers of totalitarian politics.

A Narrower Focus On Each

Each of the four men can stand alone as a fascinating subject for study, but by examining them two at a time, the authors are able to narrow their focus. The private lives of the men, for instance, become less central to discussion.

Rather than bogging down in Orwell's infidelities or Lincoln's amorphous sexual orientation, the author can instead put the issue into a larger frame of reference.

Stauffer argues that "gender roles were extremely fluid in the years before the Civil War, so much so that the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality did not even exist." And Lebedoff cites a letter that shows how Orwell's wife, Eileen, shared Orwell's belief that his writing was the most important aspect of his life.

Stauffer shows how both Lincoln and Douglass made tactical retreats from time to time (Douglass to England after his autobiography brought him to the attention of slave-catchers, while Lincoln went to Kentucky after a political reversal). For each man, the place - liberal England, where Douglass found little prejudice against his black skin, and the "restful" slave-run plantation of Mary Todd Lincoln's family - reveals part of the inner man. For despite the idealized retreats, both men chose to return to the fight for a better country.

2 Wished To Fight In WWII

In the years of World War II, both Orwell and Waugh passionately wished to fight for their country, as well. Orwell was in ill health, a chain-smoking consumptive who had been shot during the Spanish Civil War, while Waugh, though willing, was both fat and seriously unsuited to military life.

Typical of each man's pattern, Lebedoff explains, Orwell served in the lowly Home Guard while Waugh's social connections got him to Croatia, attached to Churchill's son on a diplomatic mission. Orwell slogged through wartime shortages in bombed London, an experience that lent to realistic detail to the story of "1984."

Meanwhile, in Croatia, as machine-gun fire peppered their house, Waugh emerged wearing a highly visible white coat. His companions shouted at him to take off the expletive-deleted coat, but Waugh made his way at leisure to the trench, where he announced, "I'll tell you what I think of your repulsive manners when the bombardment is over."

By pointing out the differences and describing the similarities between two contemporary historical figures, both Lebedoff and Stauffer bring the political environments to life: both the one that decried slavery because of its economic disadvantages to the Northern states, and the one where "Animal Farm" was nearly banned from publication for being too anti-Russian. And as a result, the biographies are less portraits of great men rendered on canvas in a formal pose for all posterity, but rather a vision of a time and place that created such diverse men at the same time.

Also of interest: In October, Harcourt Inc. reissued some of Orwell's brilliant essays in two collections: "All Art Is Propaganda" and "Facing Unpleasant Facts."

Amy Smith Linton of Tampa is a freelance writer.

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