Arthur Krystal - Except When I Write. Reflections of a Recovering Critic [2011][A]

Book Description
Publication Date: July 1, 2011
When cultural critics with such wildly divergent views as Jacques Barzun, Christopher Hitchens, Joseph Epstein, Dana Gioia, and Morris Dickstein all agree about the merits of one contemporary essayist, shouldn't you find out why?

"I never think except when I sit down to write."
-- Attributed to Montaigne by Edgar Allan Poe

From Montaigne in the sixteenth century to Orwell, Eliot, and Trilling in the twentieth, the best literary essayists combine a gift for observation with an abiding commitment to books. Although it may seem that books are becoming less essential and that a revolution in sensibility is taking place, the essays of Arthur Krystal suggest otherwise. Companionable without being chummy, engaged without being didactic, erudite without being stuffy, he demonstrates that literature, even in the digital age, remains the truest expression of the human condition.
Covering subjects as diverse as aphorisms, dueling, the night, and the 1960s, the essays gathered here offer the common reader uncommon pleasure. In prose that is both vibrant and elegant, Krystal negotiates among myriad subjects-from historical writing as exemplified by Jacques Barzun to the art of screenwriting as not so happily represented by F. Scott Fitzgerald. His cardinal rule as a writer? William Hazlitt's "Confound it, man, don't be insipid." No fear of that. Except When I Write is thoughtful in the most joyful sense-brimming with ideas in order to give us the flow and cadence of someone actually thinking.
Keenly observant and death on pretension, Krystal examines the world of books without ever losing sight of the world beyond them. Literature may be the bedrock on which these essays rest, but as F. R. Leavis aptly noted, "One cannot seriously be interested in literature and remain purely literary in interests." Except When I Write is a reminder of both the pleasure and the power of a well-tuned essay.

Reviews
"Arthur Krystal does what only the best writers can do: provides you with a deeper appreciation of the things you already cared about, awakens you to the things you didn't know to care about, and--on the strength of his intelligence, wit, and erudition--manages to engage you with the things you were sure you never cared about. His essays, many of which are collected here, are among my favorite prose works in recent memory, bar none." - David Bezmozgis, author of The Free World and Natasha and Other Stories

"Arthur Krystal is a writer whose essays I always want to read even when I'm not interested in their subjects - until I become interested by reading them. What makes those subjects interesting is Krystal's personal voice: sympathetic, alert, skeptical, comic, sometimes sharp, sometimes extravagant and with a sharply-focused moral intelligence. Duels, nights, writers, aphorisms, the Sixties: Krystal's latest and best book offers the pleasures of all of these and more." - Edward Mendelson, Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University

"[Krystal is] a friendly, learned and witty companion in this collection of essays, most of which first appeared in The New Yorker or Harper's. The collection ranges as widely as Krystal's reading." - New York Times Book Review

"Arthur Krystal's latest, Except When I Write, may be his best yet, a hedging statement I make not in an attempt to dodge making a case for the book, but because greatness unmans us. I am humbled before Krystal's virtues: clarity, variety, levity, gravity and the single trait without which all others are beside the point-humanity." -- Wyatt Mason, Contributing writer, New York Times Magazine; Senior Fellow of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics & the Humanities at Bard College

"Except When I Write reflects the varied cultural interests of an intellectual son-of-a-gun. Krystal's essays and reviews are unfailingly lucid and balanced-to-a-T, as is customary for this writer (I would highly recommend this and his other two essay collections)." - The Arts Fuse

About the Author
Arthur Krystal has written for the New Yorker, Harpers, the American Scholar, the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications. He is the author of The Half-Life of an American Essayist and Agitations: Essays on Life and Literature. The title essay of Except When I Write was selected for inclusion in the 2010 edition of Best American Essays. He lives in New York City.