The Half-Life of an American Essayist [Hardcover]

Arthur Krystal (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1567923283 | ISBN-13: 978-1567923285 | Publication Date: March 1, 2007 | Edition: First Edition

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. 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 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. 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?

Editorial Reviews

Review

Cantankerous freelancer Krystal (Agitations: Essays on Life and Literature) here offers his second collection of literary essays, including pieces previously published in The American Scholar, Harper's Magazine, and The New Yorker. The book's title is a riff on Goethe's phrase, "Experience is only half of experience." As Krystal notes in the opening, he's not one for churning out commercially viable personal essays, or as he bluntly puts it, "creative non-fiction nonsense." Instead, we are treated to 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. Consider the way, for example, in an essay on Raymond Chandler, he dispatches Kingsley Amis's praise for Mickey Spillane's skill at moving his plots forward: "Arrant nonsense. Bad writing by itself is sufficient to stop the action and Spillane is 95 percent bad writing." Whether you agree with him or not, this is refreshingly good stuff. Recommended for all libraries. --William D. Walsh, Library Journal

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: Writing interestingly about Jane Austen requires more imagination than confessing to having slept with someone named Jane Austen from Beaumont, Texas. 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. ( On the whole, he writes, it helps to have sin around; it s like having a set of instructions for building a life that God approves of. ) 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. If the argument isn t terribly original, he subtly ponders the obligations of remembrance. 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 only workplace they re willing to visit is the one inside their heads. --Matthew Price, New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Arthur Krystal is a full-time essayist, part-time editor, and sometime screenwriter. He has edited Jacques Barzun's The Culture We Deserve and A Company of Readers, a selection of essays written by Barzun, W.H. 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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 182 pages
• Publisher: David R Godine; First Edition edition (March 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567923283
• ISBN-13: 978-1567923285
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #300,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This half life is a total pleasure, June 8, 2007

By 

Richard Cohn (LARCHMONT, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Half-Life of an American Essayist (Hardcover)

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 combines a cultivated and informed intellect with an enthusiastic and playful wit. Arthur Kyrstal does just that and more in this collection. The essays on Laziness and Sin are absolute gems, and the ones on Beauty, Faces, The Typewriter, and Boxing Writing are all first rate. For me, this is literary entertainment of the highest order--stimulating, surprising, challenging and smart.
When you're done, you can go back to that 600 page political pundit expose, or get Krystals' other essay collection, Agitations, and continue to treat yourself to the kind of reading that reminds you of what great writing is all about.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little Masterpieces in the Genre, August 16, 2007

By 

Thomas Barran (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Half-Life of an American Essayist (Hardcover)

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 essays in school, some of us have even composed op-ed pieces or, at least, letters to editors. We know one when we see it. We know how to put an essay together, right? What's so intricate and demanding about writing essays? And just where does this sarcastic, name-dropping, self-indulgent, wrong-headed comedian get the right to call himself an "American Essayist?"

We should not react so hastily or give ourselves so much credit. About ten years ago, a contemporary Russian critic (Lidiia Ivanova) told me, "A successful essay should always be based on a paradox." I have kept this in mind for a decade, but the only essays I have read that really measure up to Ivanova's description are Krystal's. (As far as I know, the two have never met). Let's see how this works in Montaigne's essay on cannibals by using a syllogism:

a) Civilized people have refinements and human values.
b) Montaigne's cannibals have refinements and values, many that we lack;
c) The cannibals fall into the category of . . . wait a minute!

Montaigne throws us against the wall of his paradox. Krystal uses paradox effectively in an essay that appears at the beginning of "Agitations," "Closing the Books." Here he announces that he is throwing away his reading glasses, renouncing the reading of artistic fiction and erudite non-fiction, because he no longer reacts as passionately to books as he did in his younger years. Let's look at the syllogistic spine of this essay:

a) Intellectuals and writers always read good books with fervor.
b) Arthur Krystal is an intellectual and writer.
C) Arthur Krystal always . . . ??

He offers himself as an exception, his renunciation of books makes a paradox out of his own identity and career. This essay elicited a flood of angry responses from readers, who saw it as an attack on intellect and creativity, on civilization itself. Krystal carried the mark of Cain, the brand of the heretic. He had left the church. Nobody seemed to get it, to understand that he was manipulating his reader with apparently confessional prose, and that his essay, far from containing an attack on culture, emerges as a poignant elegy on transcience. If the reader thinks beyond the essay, he/she will realize that the renunciation of reading is rhetorical, and that only such an extreme gesture will register his grief over the loss of the intensity that accompanies one's first meetings with the great texts. Instead, readers covered a perceived attack on the humanities with the same abuse that met Rousseau's "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts," and Tolstoy's "What is Art?"

The essay as a genre survives, but just barely. This is unfortunate, for no other genre so successfully separates the clever and literate from the fools. It needs to be revived by readers who know how to read. We must first keep in mind the use of paradox as an eliciting tool and we must remember that the essayist uses personas and masks to manipulate the astute reader beyond the literal content to questioning his/her assumptions. The less astute, those who really believe that Jonathan Swift advocated cannibalism in his "Modest Proposal," will soon begin to call the writer names for having such stupid opinions. In Russia in 1841, Mikhail Lermontov wrote in the preface to the ssecond edition of his novel, "Our [reading] public resembles a provincial who, upon overhearing the conversation of two diplomats belonging to two warring Courts, is convinced that each envoy is betraying his government in the interests of a most tender mutual friendship." Unfortunately, the words describe too many readers in present-day America as well.

Buy and read this book, and buy "Agitations" while you are filling out your order. Among their many other attractions, these pieces provide an education in the way to read essays.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An eclectic and thought-provoking assortment, October 5, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Half-Life of an American Essayist (Hardcover)

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 from the growth of the Holocaust industry, to the life of Raymond Chandler, to the history of boxing. "While scholarly books and serious documentaries about the Holocaust are invaluable in learning about what happened and why, a certain kind of excess breeds indifference, and even this essay may be in some measure a form of betrayal. There is a part of me that feels that whatever I say for public consumption somehow cheapens the suffering of those who died and those who survived. If I have any justification for writing this, it is that I promised my father I would present his alternative to the pomp and circumstance of remembrance." An eclectic and thought-provoking assortment, recommended for intellectual and casual readers alike.