Just an opinion, but The Economist does obits right
Well, maybe it’s not an opinion, because it’s hard to take issue with obituaries that celebrate lives.
What makes The Economist’s approach so unique — and laudable — is that, as editor Ann Wroe puts it, a chronological retelling of a person’s existence is, well, boring. In short, it doesn’t do life justice.
During an October 2008 New York Public Library panel discussion (embedded video at bottom), she said:
“I think you do have to hone in on certain points in [life]. There will be one or two incidents that will really illuminate the whole thing. I think it was Virginia Woolf who said that it might be possible to write a whole life out of one tiny incident — maybe even just two minutes — and I think that might be true.”
Take, for instance, the magazine’s obituary of Norman Borlaug, who died in September. It didn’t begin by listing his day and place of birth, nor did it dive into details of his upbringing and education. No, instead, it began to tell a story.
“AS DAWN broke over northern Mexico, Norman Borlaug wriggled from his sleeping bag. Rats had run over him all night, and he was cold. In a corner of the dilapidated research station where he had tried to sleep, he found a rusting plough. He took it outside, strapped the harness to himself, and began, furiously and crazily, in front of a group of astonished peasants, to plough the land.”
Hook. Line. Sinker.
Here’s the man’s commemoration: an anecdote about the time he defiantly pushed a plough through a third-world field, a metaphor for his commitment to becoming a “feeder of the world”.
Obituaries are opportunities to do more than recall facts, and the realization makes The Economist stand out. Whether that mode of storytelling will transition to the Web as journalism makes its shift remains to be seen. But this project will certainly look for clues that may hint at an answer.
[Note: The panel discussion is entitled "DEAD from the NYPL: The Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries", and the entire video is worth a watch (Ms. Wroe's contributions begin somewhere around the 1:15 mark).]