WRITER: GRAUEL MASTERED ART OF RECREATING LIVES

Novels probably always will be considered superior to biographies, says novelist and biographer Dr. Nolan Porterfield.

"How many famous biographers can you name? For the great mass of the population, Boswell is it."

But the third annual H.O. Grauel Memorial Lecture Thursday night, Porterfield argued that the biographer's re-creation of lives is the equal of the novelist's creation of them.

"`A Truly Written Life' is a work of art and a great deal more," he said in the lecture titled "Writing Lives."

A professor emeritus of English at Southeast, Porterfield delivered the lecture at Dempster Hall before an audience of about 60 that included many former colleagues.

The former creative writing teacher said he doubts that biography ever will be elevated to the status of novels because literary art is certified by academia and few courses in biography can be found on college campuses.

There's also the problem of usually "thin and ephemeral" celebrity biographies, he said.

"But if I'm going to read trash I'd rather read Kitty Kelly than Judith Krantz."

The biographer and the novelist are both up to the same thing, Porterfield said: providing interpretations of reality.

"The question of what is real and what is not remains at the heart of literature."

Porterfield credits Grauel, the beloved former English department chairman who died in 1995, with introducing him to the biographer's art in an indirect way. While Porterfield was still a struggling instructor, Grauel arranged for him to edit and eventually rewrite the autobiography of a man who had written poorly. The writing and the research were prologue to Porterfield's later achievements.

He is the author of five books, including the novel "A Way of Knowing" and biographies about musician Jimmie Rodgers and folklorist John Lomax.

Porterfield and his wife, folklorist Erika Brady, live on a farm near Bowling Green, Ky. He is one of the foremost authorities on Jimmie Rodgers, considered by many "The Father of Country Music."

But Grauel, who taught English at Southeast for 43 years, did more than any novelist or biographer, Porterfield said.

"He created human beings. That is a more rigorous achievement and a more profound story to tell."