In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage [Hardcover]

Joseph Epstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2007

Joseph Epstein has been called America’s “liveliest, most erudite and engaging essayist” (James Atlas), and In a Cardboard Belt! provides ample proof for the claim. Taking his title from the wounded cry of the once great Max Bialystock in The Producers -- “Look at me now! Look at me now! I’m wearing a cardboard belt!” -- Epstein gives us his largest and most comprehensive collection to date.

Writing as a memoirist, polemicist, literary critic, and amused observer of contemporary culture, he uses to deft and devastating effect his signature gifts: wide-ranging erudition, sparkling humor, and a penetrating intelligence. In personally revealing essays about his father and about his years as a teacher, in deeply considered examinations of writers from Paul Valery to Truman Capote, and in incisive take-downs of such cultural pooh-bahs as Harold Bloom and George Steiner, this remarkable collection presents us with the best work of our country’s most singular talent, engaged with the richness and variety of life, witty in his response to the world, and always entertaining.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Life is not easy for me being a snob and a reverse snob simultaneously, writes Epstein (Friendship) in this engaging, irascible collection. The longtime editor of the American Scholar is indeed omnidirectional in his disdain—nature was overrated, he sniffs while driving through the Pacific Northwest—but some targets get extra attention. Chief among them are allegedly overrated intellectuals like Mortimer Adler (a clown savant with a coarse and deeply vulgar mind), Edmund Wilson (a bald, pudgy little man with a drinking problem, a nearly perpetual erection and a mean streak) and Harold Bloom (nearly perfect unreadability). Modern America is condemned for its perpetual adolescence and aversion to Henry James. And the feminists, Marxists, queer theorists and other hacks running the Modern Language Association are lashed for replacing literary aesthetics with trendy politics in university English departments (a critique that is stated more than shown). Epstein goes easier on actual (and dead) producers of literature in appreciative essays on Keats, Proust, Truman Capote and Max Beerbohm. And he's downright fond of fixtures in his own life, from a favorite Chinese restaurant to his dad, a true adult who wore black socks and business shoes to the beach. Throughout, Epstein cuts the cantankerousness with wry humor and perceptive erudition. (Sept. 6)
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From Booklist

Epstein's essays have appeared in venues as diverse as the Atlantic Monthly and Commentary; his books include short story and essay collections, a brief life of Alex de Tocqueville, and popular treatises on snobbery, friendship, and envy. He has taught English and writing and served for 23 years as the editor of American Scholar. A writer of intellectual rigor, strong and often grating opinions, and high self-regard, Epstein is a consummate stylist, and this is his most adventurous essay collection to date. Epstein analyzes his 33-year habit of keeping a journal. In literary essays that can serve as models for the form, he illuminates overlooked aspects of Proust, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Max Beerbohm. He is at once vicious and hilarious as he attacks Mortimer Adler and Harold Bloom. A delving thinker, Epstein can also be flip, even juvenile when writing of women and sex. But even when his truculence feels gratuitous, he writes so darn well that one can't help but keep reading. Zingers abound, as do splendid analogies and metaphors, and the illuminations far outweigh the diminutions. Seaman, Donna

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (September 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618721932
• ISBN-13: 978-0618721931
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,201,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JOSEPH EPSTEIN is the author of the best-selling Snobbery and of Friendship, as well as the short story collections The Goldin Boys and Fabulous Small Jews, among other books, and was formerly editor of the American Scholar. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, and other magazines.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essays Personal Literary and Savage -- Yes!, September 27, 2007

By 

G. Charles Steiner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage (Hardcover)

There are 32 essays in this book, one of which is called "Introduction." All of them are excellently written, smart, and lightly humorous.

The book is divided into four sections Personal, Literary, Attacks, and The Intellectual Life, but largely the subtitle for the book applies: "Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage."

The Savage section is terrific. It contains several attacks on at least three people: George Steiner, Harold Bloom, and Mortimer Adler. I had no idea what a doofus Adler was! This essay in particular also contains a kind of wisdom about what answers to problems in life we might expect -- or not receive -- from philosophy and its study. The attack on George Steiner is seriously penetrating, like a saber. Joseph Epstein charges George Steiner with the use of deceptive, inflated, know-it-all language so as to hide the clichés he actually thinks and writes by. The attack on Harold Bloom has been long-awaited and well-deserved since he has written books with language more clumsy than Theodore Dreiser's but with Gnostic language added, and he, I learned, influenced nobody with his pronouncements. All these essays are justly written and without bitterness of tone or nuance of any professional jealousy.

In the literary section he writes separate essays for each of three artists: Paul Valery, Marcel Proust, and I.B. Singer. These essays are the best value to be found in the book in terms of literary education, literary understanding as well as appreciation and praise of the artists mentioned. The essay on Proust contains as well a well-deserved attack on Phyllis Rose who naively wrote a book entitled "Year of Reading Proust."

The Personal section was a wholly enjoyable dip into Mr. Epstein's world. In one essay the reader learns that he has kept a diary and he meditates or muses on the usefulness of such a personal activity. In another essay, called "Memoirs of a Cheap and Finicky Glutton," he tells you of the kinds of local foods (and restaurants)-- and sausages -- he has enjoyed. The essay that serves as the Introduction is very thoughtful regarding age and turning 70. It's hard to dislike a guy who feels warm and fuzzy about Schopenhauer!

The last section called Intellectual Life deals largely with his cultural complaints and criticisms of society today in regard to movies, books, celebrities, and academia. Of the 9 essays in this section, the one I appreciated the most was "Is Reading Really At Risk?" Joseph Epstein not only answers the question, the reader learns in the process of reading the essay what is literature and why it is really different from "mere reading" of adequate and ordinary fiction.

As for criticism of the book as a whole, I have but one: 7 of the essays contain titles giving no clue as to what is the content. When this reader reflects on the Table of Contents, he has no recall of what was noteworthy or special in them. Even after re-reading them, they left little or no deep impression, though I enjoyed reading them at the time.

Finally, I enjoyed Joseph Epstein's use of language where he finds just the right word in a phrase so as to hit his target and send his meaning superlatively on and into the reader's mind. Some of the words I delighted in are: costive, jeroboam, squibs, immitigable, lucubration, antinomian, fustian, fantocinni, and com grano salis. These words, scattered like so much pepper corn in a large and nutritious salad, were perfect seasoning.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love Joseph Epstein..., October 21, 2007

By 

readernyc "readernyc" (New York City, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage (Hardcover)

Epstein saved me when I was in the bush of Jamaica WI for two years. I read every essay he wrote. I have never missed any of his books since, it's so much like hanging with a friend whose foibles and brilliance you, meaning I, already know.

Maybe because I've read him so closely, wherever his essays and stories appear, I felt at times like I had read essays here before. Maybe they were published elsewhere? If so, I didn't find that written into the book. Or, more likely, I just know his stories, proclivities and his style so well.

In a time when few read the great writers of yore, you can learn so much from any of Joseph Epstein's essay books. How much he loves Henry James and why, for example. Anyway, the "kid's turning 70" and all his readers care.

Now, one thing I always marvel over his Epstein's genuine good humor. He's a kinda mild guy. Anyone more prone to rage would not be so sanguine about The American Scholar which he edited for almost 23 years and then was fired. Man, one huge mistake imo. Sorry, Joseph E., you would never write IMO but then again, you probably do not come to Amazon to check your readers' comments. All I can say is that you are so smart and not just a little famous either. You matter to readers everywhere, so I believe. (Another line that would have the writer of these essays cringing.)

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointingly self-satisfied and mean-spirited., April 1, 2008

By 

David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage (Hardcover)

I started with those essays flagged as "attacks" (on Mortimer Adler, Harold Bloom, and Edmund Wilson, respectively), because - let's be honest - a skillful intellectual skewering of a suitably pompous target is usually pretty entertaining. But Epstein wields a bludgeon, not a rapier, and his animosity against his targets feels way too personal. For one thing, Adler is a former boss of his, and he doesn't seem to realise that trying to settle scores with a former employer through public attack just makes him (Epstein) look petty. Particularly when part of the attack is to ridicule Adler for his physical clumsiness, and for his failure to pass Columbia's mandatory swim test.

Epstein is also way too fond of the throwaway remark that plunges the stiletto into the ribcage. For instance:

"I do not know of any genuine contribution that Mortimer Adler made to serious philosophy.."
"I don't believe Susan Sontag's celebrity finally had much to do with the power or cogency of her ideas."
"Wisdom, in a critic, is never excess baggage. Edmund Wilson, it begins to be clear, traveled light", having previously characterized Wilson as "a bald, pudgy little man with a drinking problem, a nearly perpetual erection, and a mean streak".

There are far too many of these - often completely gratuitous - asides, whose characteristic feature, aside from the nastiness, appears to be that they are invariably directed at people who have been more successful than Epstein.

And for all that he purports to take down others for the 'pompous' nature of their writing, his own tone in the essays "The Perpetual Adolescent" and "The Culture of Celebrity" pretty much defines old fogeydom. So that it wasn't particularly surprising to read, in the final essay, documenting his tenure as editor of "The American Scholar", that:

"In my twenty-three years as editor, the title 'Ms' never appeared in its pages"
"I moved slowly ... on changing from 'Negro' to 'black'"
"I was not big on 'gay' either.."

Unfortunately, by the time I got through these pieces, I had developed an antipathy to Epstein that made it almost impossible to be enthusiastic about the other essays I tried. (I didn't read the 'personal' pieces). Though I did quite like the essays on Auden and Keats.

In hindsight, it might have been better to read the "personal" essays before the attack pieces, as it would have given a greater chance of developing some sympathy with Epstein. But the bitterness and gratuitous nastiness (poking fun at people for their physical defects is simply indefensible) were a real turnoff, as was the air of smug superiority that pervades these essays.

I will not be seeking out other work by this author.