TEXT B The biographer has to
dance between two shaky positions with respect to the subject. Too close a
relation, and the ’miter may lose objectivity. Not close enough, and the writer
may lack the sympathy necessary to any effort to portray a mind, a soul—the
quality of life. Who should write the biography of a family, for example
Because of their closeness to the subject, family members may have special
information, but by the same token, they may not have the distance that would
allow them to be fair. Similarly, a king’s servant might not be the best one to
write a biography of’ that king. But a foreigner might not have the knowledge
and sympathy necessary to write the king’s biography—not for a readership from
within the kingdom, at any rate. There is no ideal position for
such a task. The biographer has to work with the position he or she has in the
world, adjusting that position as necessary to deal with the subject. Every
position has strengths and weaknesses: to thrive, a writer must try to become
aware of these, evaluate them in terms of the subject, and select a position
accordingly. When their subjects are heroes of famous figures,
biographies often reveal a democratic motive: they attempt to show that their
subjects arc only human, no better than anyone else. Other biographies are meant
to change us, to invite us to become better than we are. The biographies of
Jesus found in the Bible are in this class. Biographers may
claim that their account is the" authentic" one. In advancing this claim, they
are helped if the biography is" authorized" b the subject; this presumably
allows the biographer special access to private information.
"Unauthorized" biographies also have their appeal, however, since they can
suggest an independence of mind in the biographer. In book promotions, the"
unauthorized “characterization usually suggests the prospect of juicy gossip
that the subject had hoped to suppress. A subject might have several
biographies, even several" authentic" ones. We sense intuitively that no one is
in a position to tell " the" story of a life, perhaps not even the subject, and
this has been proved by the history of biography. According to the author, an ideal biographer would be one who______.
A．knows the subject very well and yet maintains a proper distance from him B．is close to the subject and knows the techniques of biography writing C．is independent and treats tile subject with fairness and objectivity D．possesses special private information and is sympathetic toward the subject