The Half-Life of an American Essayist
Format:Hardback
Publisher:David R. Godine Publisher Inc
Published:12th Apr '07
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“A vigorous case for the virtues of old-fashioned literary criticism.”—New York Times Book Review
In his first book, Agitations: Essays on Life and Literature, which was heralded by such diverse critics as Jacques Barzun and Morris Dickstein, Arthur Krystal demonstrated that the literary essay is alive and well. Conversational in tone, but capable of addressing the political and semiotic methods adopted by the academy, Krystal’s clear and allusive style constituted a reprimand to the fashionable idea that literature is the theorists’ domain. His new book, The Half-Life of an American Essayist, continues to demonstrate that the literary essay in the right hands can itself be a subset of literature. Whether he’s examining the evolution of the typewriter, the nature of sin, the cultural implications of physiognomy, the works of Paul Valery and Raymond Chandler, or his own ineffable laziness, Krystal’s buoyant prose always speaks to the common reader.
The twelve essays in Half-Life—the title is from Goethe’s “Experience is only half of experience”—go deeper than the standard book piece; they hew to the line first drawn by Montaigne and later extended by Dr. Johnson, Hazlitt, Woolf, and Orwell. Although there may be no preordained way of writing about literature, Krystal takes his cue from Edwin Denby, who maintained that the first duty of the critic is to be “interesting.” No matter how large the subject—whether it is the history of boxing or the growth of the Holocaust industry, Krystal paints broad subjects with precise brushstrokes. Erudite, lettristic, and informative, his essays are still accessible to the general reader. The reason is simple: as Dr. Johnson noted, “What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” To this one might add that there is satisfaction to be had in the effort itself. How else could one write as committedly and entertainingly about Paul Valery’s Cahiers as about Joe Louis’s left jab?
Praise for The Half-Life of an American Essayist
“Krystal makes a vigorous case for the virtues of old-fashioned literary criticism, twitting the navel gazers of ‘creative nonfiction,’ which he dismisses as just a fancy word for memoir. . . Krystal ranges widely, taking on subjects ranging from the typewriter to boxing, and he’s not afraid of weighty topics: he slogs through the notebooks of Paul Valéry, ponders different theories of beauty and offers a defense of the seven deadly sins.”
—New York Times Book Review
“A well-crafted set of eclectic essays covering subjects ranging from the history of the typewriter, to ex-slave turned pugilist Tom Molineaux, to the Mid-Century Book Society. As with his previous work, his latest output derives its strength from Krystal's dry wit and his seeming inability to pull any punches… Whether you agree with him or not, this is refreshingly good stuff. Recommended for all libraries.”
—Library Journal
“When was the last time you settled in with a collection of essays and read straight through? And who is Arthur Krystal, whose The Half-Life of an American Essayist, proves so enjoyable that if you don't go through it in one reading, it's probably because you're taking time out to call up a friend and say, listen to this! Literate, original, conversational, witty, allusive, written for an educated general reader, the dozen pieces brought together here range over an amazingly wide terrain and recall a time when the familiar essay graced literature –indeed, when it was literature. … May the tradition of writing essays such as his never decay.”
—Joan Baum, WLIU Radio
“Arthur Krystal’s essays shine like a searchlight through the fog of contemporary culture. Vivid, sharp, and enlightening, they keep a steady keel through roiling waters. These essays are as exciting about such arcana as the history of the typewriter and eighteenth-century boxing as they are about universals such as money, laziness, and beauty.”
—Edward Mendelson, Lionel Trilling Professor of the Humanities, Columbia University
“It is a superb book, winning the rare literary trifecta of being well-written, well-reasoned, and well-researched. [The] essays are not only a pleasure to read one by one – they are a pleasure to read paragraph by paragraph.”
—Dana Gioia, Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
“Arthur Krystal is smart, keenly observant, death on pretension, and a prose writer of genuine style – qualities that combine to make him a superior essayist.”
— Joseph Epstein
“Of contemporary practitioners of [the] art of fruitful vacillation, Arthur Krystal is an essayist of unfashionable and excellent undependability. Reading Krystal on beauty, sin, typewriters, laziness, death, duelling or reading, one has no sense of what one is getting into–beyond something one feels impelled to get more deeply into. … His style is what we might call ‘conversational,’ albeit of a polyclausal and uncommonly polished kind… To read one Krystal essay is to become a Krystal reader, and to want more than his two fine books, Agitations (Yale 2002) and The Half-Life of an American Essayist (Godine 2007) as company.”
—Wyatt Mason, Harper’s Magazine
“The Half-Life of an American Essayist is a selection of twelve literary essays, written in a conversational tone yet addressing both political and semiotic precepts. Topics range from the growth of the Holocaust industry, to the life of Raymond Chandler, to the history of boxing. … An eclectic and thought-provoking assortment, recommended for intellectual and casual readers alike.”
—Midwest Book Review
ISBN: 9781567923285
Dimensions: 215mm x 161mm x 21mm
Weight: unknown
182 pages