Edward Said: An 'intellectual' biography

Book review of Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said

The subtitle of Timothy Brennan’s new book, Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said, is somewhat misleading. “A Life” implies an honest attempt at portraiture — a stab at wrestling a blood presence onto the page. In other words, a proper biography.

In his preface, Mr Brennan refers instead to his book as an “intellectual biography,” which is a subtly different animal. In this case, the result is a dry, dispiriting volume, one that frequently reads like a doctoral dissertation. What the large print giveth, the small print hath taketh away.

It hardly seems fair to fault an author for not