Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson - Book 37

The narrator is terrific for this book!  Amazing job reading very difficult stuff.

The Life of Johnson has been an ambition of mine to read for a while.  It is listed on my 50 Classics page.  I bought the book several years ago and tried to read it but found it almost incomprehensible, plus the book is too large and unwieldy and the print too tiny!   So I got the idea to listen to it in the car.  I downloaded the audible version on my phone (which took up data space so I could only take a couple of photos at a time, before my phone would warn me I was running out of space!).  But anyway, I started listening in May and just finished it this Friday morning.  I didn't listen consistently.  I'd go weeks forgetting to listen and then pick it up again.  

Sir Joshua Reynolds was a longtime friend of Johnson's.  This is his famous portrait of him.

It is not the easiest listening.  The narrator though, Bernard Mayes, is phenomenal!  He can really read Latin.  There is lots and lots of Latin and the whole thing is written in the very erudite style of the late 1700s.  It is kind of a shocker, going from the rather dumbed down language we all use now, to the cultivated, voluptuous language of the highly educated back then.  Think Jane Austen on steroids.  Even though Johnson was such a wordsmith and so highly educated, he came from lower middle class beginnings and could only afford to attend Oxford for one year.  But he had a gift for Latin and for language and this is how he made his living.  He lived in poverty for many years, scrounging out a living by writing for a magazine or two, many of which were being published at the time.  He could write eloquently about anything at the drop of a hat, so slowly he gained popularity.  As his reputation grew, his circle of friends grew too and slowly he became the center of a intellectual circle which included Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter, David Garrick, the famous Shakespeare actor, Oliver Goldsmith the Irish author of The Vicar of Wakefield, among many others.  

Sir Joshua Reynold's portrait of the famous actor David Garrick, who also happened to be a student and friend of Johnson's.

Johnson decided to write a dictionary of the English language.  Although, some had published dictionaries before, they were inadequate.  Johnson worked up in his garret, employing aides to help him for many years, struggling to find money to pay his workers and keep a roof over his own head (and his wife's).  Several years after the deadline, he produced his dictionary and it took British culture by storm for its brilliance.  Johnson not only defined the words, but the dictionary is annotated so he quotes the words from different lines in literature.  The dictionary meant Johnson had truly arrived at legendary status, even though he was already well known in certain circles for his essays and plays.  Because of the dictionary, Johnson began to receive a stipend from the King and after that, while he was never rich, he at least wasn't scrounging to pay the rent.  This was good because after his wife died, he rented rooms in his house to impoverished people, a blind widow, among others.  

Boswell is a young Scottish landed gentry who admires and befriends Johnson and decided he was going to record everything Johnson said.  Johnson was known for his great conversational abilities.  He spoke as if he was giving a speech all the time.  He was extremely witty, incisive, quick with words.  People loved to have him at their dinner parties.  He was an odd man too.  He could be abrupt, eccentric, odd.  He was a character!  Boswell and Johnson travel to the Hebrides at one point and Boswell wrote a travelogue about it which was fairly popular.  They do a lot of visiting back and forth.  They develop a pretty regular habit of spending Good Friday together.   They had a very long and loyal friendship.

A sketch of James Boswell.

Johnson was a creature of his time, for all his intellect. He was convinced of British superiority, the truth of the Anglican Church and all the other beliefs of the time (about women, etc.)  In spite of this he was unusually kind to his Negro servant, Frank, whom he left the bulk of his estate to.  He was that kind of guy, often prickly and moody on the surface, but underneath loyal and generous.

This book is so long.  I mean it goes on forever!  I kept waiting for it to end as Johnson neared the end of his life, but then Boswell would talk about another friend that Johnson had corresponded with and then stick in 20 more letters of their correspondence.   But he did finally die.  The poor man had always had a horror of death and his long fading out does seem most painful.

I haven't even covered most of what is in this enormous book.  But there is a reason it is a classic.  It has got to be the most unusual and thorough biography ever written.  It used to be that everyone read this book.  I am sure Johnson is out of favor in the USA now as he is pretty conservative and old fashioned.  However, the British maintain an affection for him.  I'd love to go to England and visit his home where he wrote the famous dictionary.  

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.