And I don't know what you mean by "non-null portrait."
Let's look that awful sentence:
Kennan’s father was something of a ne’er-do-well—not a wastrel, exactly, but unambitious and, despite his expertise in what should have been the lucrative practice of tax law, inept at navigating the real world.
It does not say "successful," first of all. It says he was expert in tax law but somehow didn't manage to turn that into serious money. "Not a wastrel, exactly" suggests that he had some wastrel-like qualities. "Unambitious" and "inept at navigating" -- also character descriptions like you'd find in fiction.
As for the servants: not that unusual in that age. Their house was "a gift from Kennan’s maternal grandparents." And it doesn't say they owned an elegant summer house; it says they "vacationed at an elegant lakeside summer retreat."
For me it IS a character portrait, sorry. I guess you don't like the author's tone, which is legitimate, but you have not indicted the writing at all.
Half of the statements contradict the other half. It's null in the sense that he's drawing an Euler diagram where the circles don't intersect. The author might have something he meant to say, but he didn't say it -- instead he seems to have just used words he likes. The only thing standing is "unambitious".
That's why I don't attempt to rewrite it. There's hardly a coherent thought for me to express differently.
And I don't know what you mean by "non-null portrait."
Let's look that awful sentence:
Kennan’s father was something of a ne’er-do-well—not a wastrel, exactly, but unambitious and, despite his expertise in what should have been the lucrative practice of tax law, inept at navigating the real world.
It does not say "successful," first of all. It says he was expert in tax law but somehow didn't manage to turn that into serious money. "Not a wastrel, exactly" suggests that he had some wastrel-like qualities. "Unambitious" and "inept at navigating" -- also character descriptions like you'd find in fiction.
As for the servants: not that unusual in that age. Their house was "a gift from Kennan’s maternal grandparents." And it doesn't say they owned an elegant summer house; it says they "vacationed at an elegant lakeside summer retreat."
For me it IS a character portrait, sorry. I guess you don't like the author's tone, which is legitimate, but you have not indicted the writing at all.