Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions: His Life and Works [Paperback]

This biography cannot be faulted in the fact that it is a thoroughly comprehensive guide to the life of Defoe, cataloguing his works in the context of it. It also cannot be faulted in its thorough analysis of his journalism, and its assertions on how this journalism relates to his political stance at any one particular moment in his life. It is the work of a biographer who has evidently spent many years immersed in Defoe's writing, with a wide knowledge of the known canon. Novak is not afraid to make definite judgements about areas which other biographers have shied away from (for example: his firm assertion that Defoe fought at Sedgemoor).

However the biography is not flawless by any means, for though comprehensive, it is not always comprehensible. I suspect that one of the problems which biographers find with Defoe is that we actually know too much. With such an immense canon, which gives us such a strong sense of the man, his opinions, his life and his politics, the biographer is concerned more with what to leave out that with what to put in. Novak has elected to concentrate on the academic side, probably because this is what is known most of. Defoe's private life, aside from the barely mentioned facts of his 'companionate' marriage and his favouritism towards his youngest daughter Sophia, seems to take a definite back-seat to the thorough consideration of Defoe's work and politics. Unfortunately this does not make for a riveting read, for the modern preference is for human interest as opposed (some might term it the opposite): the political interest. Apart from anything, to fully appreciate Novak's biography, one either needs a degree in post-Restoration history, or at least a thorough chronology of that period: which it would be useful if Novak's biography provided, for although it is written in a basically chronological order, understandably Novak likes to be able to move around: comparing one work with another, which leads to confusion. He also speaks of Whigs and Tories, Jacobites, Dissenters, Pretenders, Hanoverians etc. with barely a note of explanation as to who these are or what they represent, which becomes particularly difficult when the political ideologies of these groups alter. Simply it becomes difficult to keep track of who is who, who supports what, and then where Defoe stands.

Depicted on the cover is a picture of a shipwreck. It is entitled 'Pulling as well as we could towards land'. It seems to me that Novak is pulling, as well as he can, towards making some sense of the strange and tumultuous life of Defoe. His primary aim, I think, is to dispel some of the myth and to show Defoe as a real man: feeling, emotional, driven, passionate and intelligent, but ridden with faults. He certainly does do this, but it is amidst a great amount of listing Defoe's pamphlets, and short analysis of these which (although interesting to the serious scholar of Defoe) do unfortunately, for the most part, seem simply tedious and unnecessary.

However the biography really comes into its own in its discussion of Robinson Crusoe and the other novels. Clearly Novak's specialist subject: he is fascinatingly insightful, comparing Robinson Crusoe to: "...a painting by Dali that may appear to be head of Voltaire at one moment and then a group of ladies dancing, it tends to have enough in it to support what might seem to be entirely separate readings." The discussion of the novels is clear, intelligent and interesting; with discussion of Defoe's source material, figures who influenced Defoe in his creation of the protagonists, the reception the novels received and intelligent analysis of what their meanings are.

In short this biography is a very important piece of work: it is a balanced and intelligent, clear modern view of 'the inventor of the novel'. Novak does not idealise Defoe, nor villainise him: but he treats him as an unrecognised genius: over-idealistic, a cantankerous opinionist, a spin doctor par excellence, but above all a human being. It claims, on the sleeve, to be "the first biography to view Defoe's complex life through the angle of vision that is most important to us as modern readers - his career as a writer." It certainly does achieve this, but it is arguable whether this is what the modern reader actually prefers this to human interest - I suspect that people prefer to know about the person behind the writing (the fact that the three top non-fiction books in the Times bestseller list this week are 'auto-biographies' of Posh Spice, David Beckham and Robbie Williams would suggest this is the case). It essentially suffers from one key fault: it tries to be a one-volume easily accessible biography, and it also tries to be thoroughly comprehensive. It achieves the latter at the expense of the former.