Why I Should Research Biographers More: June 2020 Book Bracket

I have an apology to make. In June of 2020, I determined that my favorite book of the month was Humphrey Carpenter's biography, "Tolkien." Since then, I've heard from author and academic Holly Ordway and read in Joseph Pearce's book "Tolkien: Man and Myth" that Carpenter may have been extremely critical of his subject, and to a degree that may have clouded his presentation of one of my favorite authors. I apologize to any potential readers I have, and also to myself, that I did not look into the potential biases of the biographer before I went and picked the book as my favorite for a month in which I read 13 other books.

Now, I know that Joseph Pearce's opinions are best taken with a grain of salt - he has his very definite biases, too, all very much in favor of whomever he is writing. However, having heard the same implication from multiple sources, I realized that Carpenter, in the guise of "official biographer," may not have the most accurate perspective of Tolkien.

However, I'm not ready to plunge into a full-scale research project to determine just how negative Carpenter's view of Tolkien might have been, and if or to what extent that bias appears in the biography. Note the title of this post: "WHY I should research biographers more", not "I'm going to always research biographers more or even right now". Just the implication that Carpenter might not have been just to his subject is enough for me to throw up my arms in dismay at this late hour and cry, "Who is to be trusted?" Pearce has his biases and is probably too generous with Tolkien. Carpenter seems to have had his biases and may not have drawn correct conclusions about Tolkien, or put him in a fair light. It seems that the only solution is for biographers to stick strictly to the facts and never analyze, synthesize, or construe any suppositions beyond the bare facts. But that hardly makes for an interesting biography, does it? People want to know about what makes individuals tick, and that is not necessarily going to be found in the mere exposition of important life events.

It is alarming to me, as a reader, that I don't even know what I don't know. Authors have biases...authors who write about writers have biases...I'm not quite sure what to make of it. But I do hope that, someday, someone will pen an academic article that really explains what the relation between Carpenter and Tolkien was, and what his possible writing flaws may have been.

I am not going to say that "Tolkien" by Carpenter was not my favorite book of June. However, I'd like to add a warning now to those who consider reading it that you may want to be wary of Carpenter's perspective and not buy it trustingly and whole-heartedly, as I largely did.