A review by misspalah
Written Lives by Javier Marías

funny lighthearted slow-paced

2.0

Madame du Deffand's bad reputation pursued her for some time, but could not outrun her talent. Once past the first flush of youth, the kind of prestige she wanted was intelligence, and with the birth of her salon was born her legend: when she was very old, foreigners and young Frenchmen with a future would go to extraordinary lengths to get invited to one of her suppers, in order to be able to tell their descendants that they had met the friend of Voltaire, Montesquieu, D'Alembert, Burke, Hume and Gibbon and even of the lately deceased Fontenelle. One of those young men was Talleyrand, who, at eighteen, had a rather ingenuous view of the Marquise: "Blindness," he said, "confers on the gentle placidity of her face an expression bordering on beatitude."

Her eyes did, it seems, preserve to the last their permanent beauty, but to see in that lady "unequalled kindness", "great beauty" or "beatitude" was perhaps another form of blindness, since age never changed Madame du Deffand's character, for she had always been indifferent and, on occasion, cruel.

• Madame du deffand and the idiots : Written lives by Javier Marias

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It was enjoyable at first but it became such a chore to finish it. Instead of the usual detailed biographies, it's filled with short stories that reveal the human side of these writers, showing their quirks and imperfections. Unfortunately in my case, i really thought it is about an important and detailed information on regards of these famous authors' lives. The book mostly talks about male authors and somehow it is clearly demonstrated who did the author likes and dislikes. I don’t want to make my own assumptions but from what i have read i can say that he did not really like female authors simply based on those not-so-great descriptions of women in this book. Joseph Conrad, James Joyce and Henry James are some of the authors that has been highlighted in this biographies with the author’s witty and quirky storytelling. Even though there's not much new to learn about these famous writers,  it was fun while it lasted.  At the end of the day,  It just shows they're human like everyone else. This book is perfect for you if you are into some wild and unverified gossip and rumour about these prominent authors than their factual details.