The Lives of Others

‘My wife doesn’t understand me,’ the man said to his Jewish psychoanalyst. ‘I should be so lucky!’ was the reply. It’s a common complaint, not being understood. Yet surely only the most shameless would like others to know us exactly as we are or as we know ourselves. This is one reason some writers shrink from the prospect of having their Life written. Kipling called biography ‘the higher cannibalism’, and tried to pre-empt one by writing his own decidedly reticent memoir, Something of Myself. Something indeed, but not a lot. Subsequently, his widow, Carrie, burned letters and other papers; their daughter, Elsie, suppressed Frederick Birkenhead’s biography without giving a reason, and when at last consenting to one, tied its author Charles Carrington’s hands. One sees their point. In life Kipling concealed everything but his opinions; why should a biographer be free to expose what had been kept hidden from view.