The Great Ones........no offence to Jackie Gleason

[Guest guest]

People who've done or written great things tend to seem as if they were

a race apart. And most biographies only exaggerate this illusion,

partly due to the worshipful attitude biographers inevitably sink into,

and partly because, knowing how the story ends, they can't help

streamlining the plot till it seems like the subject's life was a

matter of destiny, the mere unfolding of some innate genius. In fact

the suspicion here is that if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare

or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not totally

unlike your other friends.