The Power of Delight: A Lifetime in Literature: Essays 1962-2002 [Hardcover]

John Bayley (Author), Leo Carey (Creator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2005

BEGINNING HIS CAREER at Oxford in the 1950s, the ever-incisive John Bayley has been one of the great bulwarks--in the tradition of William Hazlitt and Edmund Wilson--of twentieth-century world literature, and his distinctive sensibility has reshaped tastes and theories more than was previously realized. Here, in "The Power of Delight, a volume that has been assembled with the assistance of "The New Yorker editor Leo Carey, we see at last the full range of Bayley's life and work, divided into eight sections that include "English Literature," "Russian Novels," and "American Poetry." A wide-ranging guide to essential reading, "The Power of Delight examines classics, neglected gems, and masterpieces of our time--from Jane Austen to Milan Kundera, Leo Tolstoy to John Ashbery, and from Robert Lowell's messy persona to George Orwell's self-canonization.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bayley is best known as the late Iris Murdoch's devoted husband, but for most of his life, he has also been a professor and literary critic in his own right. This extensive collection of criticism attests to the breadth of his knowledge, his range of interests and his generosity as a reader of the great literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. In this volume, Bailey proves himself endlessly curious—as he notes in the introduction, he learned to read Russian in order to read Pushkin, and then went on to tackle Tolstoy, Akhmatova and the rest. In the majority of these essays—most culled from the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement—Bayley revisits a single writer's life and oeuvre. Selected by Carey, the New Yorker's literary editor, the essays are arranged chronologically according to the writers' births rather than when the pieces were written. The result minimizes the developments in Bayley's attitudes and style, but that's a small price to pay for such erudite and enthusiastic considerations of literature. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bayley began teaching English literature at Oxford in 1955 and soon thereafter began writing reviews, mutually beneficial pursuits that have made him an exceptionally agile reader and a graceful critic. In his introduction to this grand, beautifully titled collection of essays, Bayley details the pleasures of reviewing, and his delight in writing criticism truly is evident in each of the essays judiciously gathered here. Bayley, also the author of two striking memoirs, including Elegy for Iris (1999), his haunting tribute to his late wife, Iris Murdoch, takes on English literature with dash, revisiting Laurence Sterne, Jane Austen, and Graham Greene, but he is even more passionate in his engagement with an acquired love, Russian literature, writing richly referenced and marvelously conversational assessments of Pushkin, Babel, and Chekhov, among many others. Bayley also writes incisively about key American poets and offers groundbreaking interpretations of such Eastern European writers as Milan Kundera, Witold Gombrowicz, and Paul Celan. Astute not only in matters of aesthetics but also in the ways literature mirrors, and, perhaps, effects social change, Bayley is at once worldly and companionable. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 677 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (March 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393058409
• ISBN-13: 978-0393058406
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,088,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerfully Delightful, for Literature "Mavens", March 30, 2008

By 

Avital Pilpel "classics_lover" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Power of Delight: A Lifetime in Literature: Essays 1962-2002 (Hardcover)

This collection of essays deals, essentially, with all aspects of literature: from Joseph Conrad to Gogol, from Shakespeare to Lowell.

Almost all of these essays are very good, showing not only why a certain author is important but also argue for a very specific view of him (or, more rarely, her). For example, seeing Gogol as the real father of Russian literature, he quotes--if I remember correctly--Dostoyevsky, who said that "We All Came from Under Gogol's overcoat", the reference being of course to Gogol's famous short story of the same name.) But that's not it; he shows *Exactly why* he thinks that Gogol--both in his personal life *and* in his works--does, indeed, deserve the moniker.

If you are a literary buff, you will enjoy these essays immensely. You will consrantly find yourself think--reading about Tolstoy, Balzac, Lowell, Conrad, etc.--"A-HA! So THAT'S why I enjoyed him so much!". If there is a problem with this, it's only that the author is *so* convincing that often you suspend your criticism and your own views and replace them wholesale with those of the author (at least while you read). This, of course, is the usual risk when reading well-written works.

One issue, though: one needs to remember that these essays are for those who love literature and read *A LOT* (though, it seems, NOBODY read as much as the author of these essays). If you are a casual fan of one or two authors, this book may be a waste of money for you--since you'll probably not "get" the many references the essayist uses in relating your favorite authors to the great web of literature. Still, it could be useful in showing you who should be "next in line" on your reading list.

For the "Maven", highly recommended. For the causal fan of literature, it might be too strong a drink.