Starred Review. In the opening of this marvelous collection of book reviews, Dirda declares that his book "intentionally resembles a cocktail party more than a work of criticism: it’s meant to be entertaining, sometimes provocative, above all a way to catch up with old friends and make new ones." The author himself serves as the perfect host: intelligent but humble, witty but substantial, instructive but never dogmatic. Dirda, who has worked as a writer and editor at the Washington Post Book World for more than 20 years, and who won a Pulitzer for his criticism in 1993, arranges his volume by topic so that readers interested in, say, the Renaissance, can turn to the section on "Old Masters" and find essays on both Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose and Peter Brown’s history The Rise of Western Christendom. Dirda is particularly deft at presenting well-known classics in a way that makes them seem fresh and inviting. Of Rabelais’s characters he writes, for example: "You wouldn’t want them for neighbors, but they’d be great on your side in a fight." And he’s tops at conveying the pleasure of reading itself. In fact, if there’s one problem with his collection, it’s that its essays are so tantalizing that they make you want to put down his book and run out to read a whole slew of new ones. But this, it’s clear, is exactly what Dirda wants. He’s included only the most praiseworthy reviews in this volume, with the hope that they will encourage readers "to look beyond the boundaries of the fashionable, established, or academic" and to become familiar with "terrific writers from around the world," such as Fernando Pessoa, Marcel Proust and Mikhail Bulgakov. Any serious reader will appreciate these gracious recommendations from one of the best literary journalists of our time.
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Week by week, year after year, Dirda has shared his love for books and literary expertise in a column for the Washington Post Book World, earning a Pulitzer Prize for his supple, judicious, and enlivening criticism. Following his fine memoir, An Open Book (2003), he has assembled a terrific reader's resource, gathering together dozens of his superlative essays. Dirda has a rare knack for revealing the process through which he forms his opinions, an approach that sharpens his readers' reading skills, and his range is phenomenal, nearly approaching the grandness of Harold Bloom's. Here are considerations of new translations of Herodotus and Rabelais as well as reviews of the late greats Stanley Elkin and William Gaddis. Eschewing the usual suspects, he writes about Dawn Powell, Henry Green, Terry Pratchett, and Gilbert Sorrentino. Dirda has a conspicuously good time reviewing literary biographies, which afford the opportunity for him to weigh in on both the biographer and the subject, be it Blake, Pushkin, Colette, or Chester Himes. Engaging, personable, and cogent, Dirda is a true champion of the book. Donna Seaman
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