The Half-Life of an American Essayist
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.64 (913 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1567923283 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 182 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-11-19 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"Little Masterpieces in the Genre" according to Thomas Barran. Arthur Krystal's second collection of essays, "The Half-Life of an American Essayist," confirms the opinion of his writing that I came to after his first collection "Agitations" appeared. He has an instinctive grasp of the essay as genre and produces some of the very best contemporary examples of that misunderstood category. Now, we all wrote essay. R.S. Cohn said This half life is a total pleasure. Here's my suggestion, put down that 600 page tome on what's happening behind closed doors at the White House, take a pass on the latest "woe is me" memoir and just sit back and let a smart, funny, and always stimulating conversationalist engage your mind with fresh insights into fascinating topics in impeccable style. It is the rare essayist who co. Midwest Book Review said An eclectic and thought-provoking assortment. Essayist Arthur Krystal's work has previously appeared in such respected publications as "The American Scholar", "The New Yorker", "The Wall Street Journal", and more. 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 fro
) In My Holocaust Problem, Krystal (whose grandparents died in the camps) complains that the profusion of Holocaust books, films and memorials the pomp and circumstance of remembrance has trivialized the event. Walsh, Library JournalKrystal 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: Writing interestingly about Jane Austen requires more imagination than confessing to having slept with someone named Jane Austen from Beaumont, Texas. As with his previous work, his latest output derives its strength from Krystal's dry wit and his seeming inability to pull any punches. Recommended for all libraries. In his charming concluding essay, Who Speaks for the Lazy?, Krystal returns to justifying his underachieving ways: Let s face it, some boys and girls become writers because the o
Auden, and Lionel Trilling for The Readers' Subscription and Mid-Century Book Clubs. Krystal's own reviews and essays have appeared in The American Scholar, Harper's, The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Village Voice, The Washington Post Book World, The Times Literary Supplement, Sports Illustrated, and Arts & Antiques. . Arthur Krystal is a full-time essayist, part-time editor, and sometime screenwriter. H
The reason is simple: as Dr. 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 The 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. 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. Johnson, Hazlitt, Woolf and Orwell. In his first book, Agitations: Essays on Life and Literature, which was heralded by such diverse crtics as Jacques Barzun and Morris Dickstein, Arthur Krystal demonstrated that the literary essay is alive and well.