Jonathan Swift

Aiming to evoke Swifts character rather than to give a comprehensiveor linearaccount of his life, Glendinning (Electricity, a novel; Rebecca West, a Life) captures the great 18th-century writers witty, cantankerous personality and his lifelong frustrations. The man who wrote Gullivers Travels, one of the greatest prose satires in the English language, died disappointed, sure that his best chance in lifemoving up the church hierarchyhad been missed, due to the tepidness of his allies in high places. Glendinnings Swift cant understand that the very qualitiesacid wit, uncompromising honesty, personal oddity and awkwardnessthat made him a brilliant, and unique, writer (and an attractive subject to biographers) undermined his ability to ingratiate himself with his superiors. Glendinning runs into trouble with her decision to forgo a traditional structure in favor of what was in Swifts time called a charactera written portrait. She seems unclear who her audience is, at times assuming a familiarity with Swifts poems, and then giving a lengthy summary of Gulliver. But at other times, her speculative method pays off, when she lends equal weight to conflicting accounts. She muses about the reasons that Swift either did or did not secretly marry the love of his life, Stella (aka Esther Johnson): Were they, for instance, secretly related, as the illegitimate children of Swifts mentor, Sir William Temple? But when it comes to sexual matters, shes more reticent. A bit too self-consciously, Glendinning often starts down one path, interrupts herself with a no, and then moves off in another direction. Inconsistencies such as these ultimately mar an otherwise intriguing portrait. (May)