Except When I Write
Reflections of a Recovering Critic
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:8th Sep '11
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£20.49(9780190494360)
"I never think except when I sit down to write." - Attributed to Montaigne by Edgar Allan Poe From Montaigne in the sixteenth century to Orwell, Eliot, and Trilling in the twentieth, the best literary essayists combine a gift for observation with an abiding commitment to books. Although it may seem that books are becoming less essential and that a revolution in sensibility is taking place, the essays of Arthur Krystal suggest otherwise. Companionable without being chummy, engaged without being didactic, erudite without being stuffy, he demonstrates that literature, even in the digital age, remains the truest expression of the human condition. Covering subjects as diverse as aphorisms, dueling, the night, and the 1960s, the essays gathered here offer the common reader uncommon pleasure. In prose that is both vibrant and elegant, Krystal negotiates among myriad subjects-from historical writing as exemplified by Jacques Barzun to the art of screenwriting as not so happily represented by F. Scott Fitzgerald. His cardinal rule as a writer? William Hazlitt's "Confound it, man, don't be insipid." No fear of that. Except When I Write is thoughtful in the most joyful sense-brimming with ideas in order to give us the flow and cadence of someone actually thinking.
I am humbled before Krystal's virtues: clarity, variety, levity, gravity and the single trait without which all others are beside the point -- humanity. * Wyatt Mason, Contributing writer, New York Times Magazine *
Arthur Krystal is a writer whose essays I always want to read even when I'm not interested in their subjects - until I become interested by reading them. What makes those subjects interesting is Krystal's personal voice: sympathetic, alert, skeptical, comic, sometimes sharp, sometimes extravagant and with a sharply-focused moral intelligence. * Edward Mendelson, Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University *
Arthur Krystal does what only the best writers can do: provides you with a deeper appreciation of the things you already cared about, awakens you to the things you didn't know to care about, and--on the strength of his intelligence, wit, and erudition--manages to engage you with the things you were sure you never cared about. His essays, many of which are collected here, are among my favorite prose works in recent memory, bar none. * David Bezmozgis, author of 'The Free World and Natasha, and Other Stories' *
'Except When I Write' reflects the varied cultural interests of an intellectual son-of-a-gun. Krystal's essays and reviews are unfailingly lucid and balanced-to-a-T. * The Arts Fuse *
The essays in 'Except When I Write' nearly all appeared in either Harper's or The New Yorker. That in itself speaks to their quality. * Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize critic and columnist for The Washington Post's Book World *
ISBN: 9780199782406
Dimensions: 148mm x 217mm x 20mm
Weight: 340g
214 pages