The article really is about the question in its title, though: it's not a book review.
I dislike as much as anybody the fashion of judging historical figures by today's mores, but that's not what's happening in Boswell's case. He's being retconned as an idiot and a terrible person not by people in pursuit of 21st century social justice, but by the likes of Borges and Thomas Carlyle. Though the author has gone overboard by calling him "the worst man in the world".
Personally, I like the Borges interpretation, that it needs to be thus for the narrative - the noble and brilliant Johnson contrasted with the base and feeble Boswell. Though I don't get the Don Quixote comparison - isn't Sancho Panza in some ways the smarter one in that relationship?
The article is still up there, and the thread is still able to support excellent comments like yours here, while remaining within the orbit of the book itself. That seems to me the right balance.
I dislike as much as anybody the fashion of judging historical figures by today's mores, but that's not what's happening in Boswell's case. He's being retconned as an idiot and a terrible person not by people in pursuit of 21st century social justice, but by the likes of Borges and Thomas Carlyle. Though the author has gone overboard by calling him "the worst man in the world".
Personally, I like the Borges interpretation, that it needs to be thus for the narrative - the noble and brilliant Johnson contrasted with the base and feeble Boswell. Though I don't get the Don Quixote comparison - isn't Sancho Panza in some ways the smarter one in that relationship?