19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To have a friend: Be one, June 30, 2006
This review is from: Friendship: An Expose (Hardcover)
'Friendship' is one of the most important elements in human life. I know people usually without strong family ties for whom friends matter more than anything else in the world. Now Joseph Epstein one of the sharpest and most insightful of contemporary observers of human character has written a work in which he analyzes and seeks to encapsulate the wisdom of his own experience in Friendship. He does many different things in the nineteen essays which constitute this book, one central one is to tell the story of a major friendship in his life at length. He also does other less congenial things like keeping a diary in which he lists all the inconveniences and problems maintaining his friendships cause him. Epstein in his previous works on 'Snobbery ' and 'Envy ' has been no stranger to seeing the less - attractive sides of mankind, and he does this here. In his favor it can be said that he is most candid about his own foibles.
As Epstein sees it , like many other things, Friendship is not what it used to be. Our E-mailing speeded up world has made Friendship seem to many more of a quick fix and a burden. In talking however about his own estimated seventy- five friendships, including those with such luminaries as Saul Bellow and Ralph Ellison Epstein also indicates how Friendship can broaden our perception and perspective. He analyzes in the work a whole variety of different kinds of Friendship, and tries to as it were create a personal Taxonomy of the subject.
Towards the end of the book catches himself and says that his critical remarks about friendship have not been made in order to discredit the institution.
" At moments in the course of writing this book I had the staggering thought that I seemed to be coming out against friendship .... That is not at all what I had in mind when I began .... What I wanted was to take some of the air out of the idealization of friendship, so that a friend, like a teacher or a clergyman, need not always feel that he or she is falling short of an impossible ideal."
Ideal or not , this book is rich with material for reflection upon one of the most important subjects of human life. It is one of those kinds of books which even when disagreed with provides inspiration for thought, and insight into our own personal realities.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative but not insightful, August 3, 2006
This review is from: Friendship: An Expose (Hardcover)
This book stimulated me to think about the nature of friendship, but ultimately it was somewhat unsatisfying because the author did not seem to have any special insights of his own.
For a person who clearly considers himself to be rather reserved, the author was very candid about his own friendships and attitudes towards his friends (leaving me glad I am not among them!), but he seemed too quick to generalize without any apparent basis. There also seemed to be a tendency to "name drop", as if he felt the quality of his Friends List would give stature to his conclusions.
Nonetheless, the book was an interesting exploration of an important subject that most people do not think about. Many of Epstein's pronouncements made me ponder about my own concept of friendship, which was a worthwhile experience, even when I ultimately found many of his ideas inaccurate or unconvincing.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful and Profound, July 18, 2006
This review is from: Friendship: An Expose (Hardcover)
An unusually insightful read about a surprisingly neglected topic. Aristotle and Montaigne both had a go at it. Recent entrees are all self-help books - heavy on the mystical and the idealistic. In "Friendship: An Expose," Epstein analyzes his own experiences and methods in friendship, making this a personal memoir of surprising candor: "When I was a boy, I took on and scraped off best friends the way a careful boat owner does barnacles. Most were, with time, demoted to friendships of lesser intensity."
He started out with a subject, but no theme. As he progressed, his theme solidified - that his friends weren't perfect, but neither was he a perfect friend to them. "Perfection in friendship just isn't on the menu. To idealize friendship, in general, is a serious error." Epstein didn't want to write the glorified version. Whether he knows it or not, Epstein's personal anecdotes could have come straight from textbooks on game theory and evolutionary psychology. Some of the themes he develops are:
Friendships entail obligations - sometimes ample, sometimes miniscule and subtle. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair. Reciprocity is the heart of friendship.
Friends keep updated tally-sheets on each other. "Score-keeping - I wish to root such behavior out of myself. I can't." Detecting who's in business solely for himself can be a subtle matter. Fortunately, we come from the factory with a good cheater-detection module.
Some openly prefer acquaintances to friends - more variety, less baggage - "They're too much on their good behavior to exhibit their weaknesses."
Maintaining too many friends at one time on a regular basis turns you into a professional friend.
We enter friendships mainly through instinct.
New Yorker cartoon: man coming out of church saying, "How can I love my enemies when I don't even like my friends?"
Epstein apparently has the natural ability to put others at ease. "As part of my prowess at making friends, I had at my command a small gift for implying an intimacy that often wasn't there. I have it still, and it sometimes gets me into difficulty - making people think I have stronger feelings for them than in fact I do."
This intermittent theme of the book may turn people off, but as revealed in his diary, he obviously does his part as a friend. It comes natural to him to massage and maintain his relationships. He may not always want to listen, but he listens anyway. As the story unfolds, it turns into a self-help book without meaning to, by virtue of his example.
Epstein is admirably honest about his own shortcomings, and while his opinions of his socialization abilities may sound arrogant, it doesn't keep me from liking him. His insights are profound, the book is original, and there is nothing frivolous about his approach. I highly recommend this book to anyone who would wish to know more about themselves and their friendships.
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