BIOGRAPHY PAINTS A COMPELLING, CLEAR PICTURE OF WILLIAM JAMES.(Lifestyle)(Review) From: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA) | Date: February 21, 1998 | COPYRIGHT 1998 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

At the start of her compelling new biography, ``Genuine Reality: A Life of William James,'' Linda Simon emphasizes how hard it is to get James into focus. In her epigraph, she quotes his famous remark ``the word `or' names a genuine reality.''

In her introduction, she emphasizes his contradictoriness in his attitudes toward religion, politics, money and family. At the outset of her narrative, she underscores why we still think of James, who lived from 1842 to 1910, in su...