How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays

How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays [Daniel Mendelsohn ] on leondumoulin.nl *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Whether he's on.
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Catalogue Persistent Identifier https: You must be logged in to Tag Records. In the Library Request this item to view in the Library's reading rooms using your library card. Details Collect From YY YY hbk Main Reading Room. Order a copy Copyright or permission restrictions may apply. We will contact you if necessary. To learn more about Copies Direct watch this short online video. Without stepping outside it, Mendelsohn elevates it. Aug 24, Blackbook rated it really liked it Shelves: How can I write a review of a book on reviewing? Sep 21, James rated it it was amazing. Daniel Mendelsohn is much, much smarter than I am and has a sophisticated perspective on whole areas of the culture opera, say of which I am almost entirely ignorant, I can't imagine a critic, though, more in line with my own peculiar enthusiasms.

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I wouln't've thought it was possible to read someone with astute things to say about Kill Bill and Thucydides, let alone with such generous sensibility and elegant prose style. I was a little less smitten, I suppose, with this collection than with Daniel Mendelsohn is much, much smarter than I am and has a sophisticated perspective on whole areas of the culture opera, say of which I am almost entirely ignorant, I can't imagine a critic, though, more in line with my own peculiar enthusiasms. I was a little less smitten, I suppose, with this collection than with Waiting for the Barbarians , which has everything to do, I'm sure, with the order in which I read them.

I was aware though, that one disadvantage of reading a collection of pieces published over time in several periodicals is that certain arguments made for different audiences in different contexts are repeated in a way that for the anthology reader seems redundant. Nevertheless, I couldn't help feeling he was being a little insistent. General excellence aside, one thing I really like about Mendelsohn is his generosity.


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In contrast with another critic whose collection collection I just read, I don't think I've read a piece of criticism by Daniel Mendelsohn in which he doesn't examine at least one thing he genuinely enjoyed in the piece under discussion. I think I value this not just because it offers the reader some tonal relief, but because it means he paid attention to the work instead of writing a self-fulfilling piece about his own rhetorical presuppositions.

Sep 28, Cameron rated it really liked it. For what is a crisis, if not an event that forces us to distinguish between the crucial and the trivial, forces us to reveal our priorities, to apply the most rigorous criteria and judge things? Jun 15, Ci rated it really liked it. As a culture and art critic, the author spans this book of essays into several categories: I did not read all the essays as I am not yet familiar with some of the subject matters, and would rather come to the essays when I have more than a casual acquaintances as I know how influential a critic As a culture and art critic, the author spans this book of essays into several categories: I did not read all the essays as I am not yet familiar with some of the subject matters, and would rather come to the essays when I have more than a casual acquaintances as I know how influential a critic would be to shape the prejudice and presumptions of our initial encounter , but I did read the pieces such as "The Hours" with care.

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Three women's lives, some rather trivial and tiny the kinder word is "quotidian" , and one bigger Virginia Woolf. The author said that The Hours is a literary novel to "investigate the large Woolf themes -- the nature of creativity, the role of literature in life, the authentic feel of everyday living". Of course, The Hours is a delicate and ventriloquizing work after Mrs. Dalloway, an equally puzzling book for my more foreign and perhaps slightly modern view of women's lives.

The book and movie thus maintained a very explicit linkage to Woolf's own work and life. This brings afore the question: From the mammoth sculptures of Henry Moore to the miniaturist curving inside a snuff box, what constitutes genuine art? Women's delicacy and their bravery in miniature social confines is still a form too refined for my own taste but I find myself constantly being drawn to them -- of which, I would chalk up as a promising beginning to see the world of the "quotidian". Aug 20, Mythili rated it it was amazing.

Daniel Mendelsohn observes in this collection's intro that as a critic, "however random the assignments you accept, you always end up writing your own intellectual autobiography.

How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken : essays (Book, ) [leondumoulin.nl]

H Daniel Mendelsohn observes in this collection's intro that as a critic, "however random the assignments you accept, you always end up writing your own intellectual autobiography. And in any case, these essays are brilliant, thoughtful, deeply researched and very engaging. Mendelsohn's review of Kill Bill: Vol 1 answered some unsolved questions I had about what the bloody heck Tarantino was referencing in places; his essay on Dale Peck raises great issues on the practice and function of literary criticism; and in other reviews, he neatly fills in the blanks on the biographies of Henry James and Oscar Wilde and Alexander the Great while weighing contemporary takes on their work and reminding the reader of the roots of these dead white guys' relevance in the first place.

I know more than a few of my Goodreads buddies dig these kinds of explorations as much as I do.

How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken

It took me a while to get around to picking up this book but I'm glad I finally did If you loathed The Lovely Bones but couldn't entirely articulate why it seemed so insidious, this book is for you. May 11, Kate rated it really liked it. Collection of essays by one of my favorite cultural critics of the moment.

KIRKUS REVIEW

I gave it a four, but the truth is, it oscillates between a 3 and a 5. When it's good, it's nothing short of a testament to why criticism is essential to culture.

MORE BY DANIEL MENDELSOHN

When it's not great, it's worthwhile but not mind expanding. Topics of essays include: If you don't want to read the whole book, but you're interested in EITHER movies OR marketing OR what it means to be gay OR how liberal mainstream culture has attempted to make gay love "palatable," plant yourself in the corner of a bookstore and read the Brokeback essay. Also, you know how you read a publication, like the New Yorker or the NY Review of Books, and you sort of note various contributors, but the names don't really stick? But sometimes you read a piece and it's so memorable that bam! Well, my brain involuntarily learned Mendelsohn's name when I read his Almodovar essay in the NY Review of Books the essay is included in this book.

I think any Almodovar fan should definitely read it. FYI, this is the same author who got a lot of attention for his book "The Lost," which chronicles his attempt to decipher the fates six members of his family who died in the Holocaust. Aug 17, Paula rated it really liked it. At some point in high school possibly multiple points , you were undoubtedly forced to read an ancient Greek play though hopefully not in ancient Greek.

And most likely, you were bored out of your mind and wondered why you reading these plays when they had nothing to do with your life. Although most likely not your fault. If my teachers had explained "Medea" or "Antigone" with even half the brilliance of Mendelsohn, English classes would have been a vastly different experience. A classi At some point in high school possibly multiple points , you were undoubtedly forced to read an ancient Greek play though hopefully not in ancient Greek.

A classics scholar and a critic, Mendelsohn examines a variety of subjects, from movies to plays to books, usually linking them to concepts from classical thought. And it's not all stuff high culture stuff, either: Although familiarity with the topics is helpful, he always provides a summary and commentary so you can follow along. Furthermore, "How Beautiful" shows how to write an engaging essay. Not only was I intrigued by each okay, almost all of them essay, I was surprised by Mendelsohn's humor countless times. I found that I wanted to go back and reread a couple of essays as soon as I had finished them.

So if you want an elegant and incisive critique of modern culture, I highly recommend "How Beautiful. Jan 30, Rj rated it it was amazing. Harper and Row, A number of the essays I had read before in the New York Review of Books not recognizing or differentiating who Mendelsohn was. His approach to criticism and essay writing is heavily informed by his work in classical literature and languages and often focuses on the geneaology of words or ideas. As the world of classics remains on the periphery of my own knowledge base, save some public school greek and latin mythology, reading his reviews makes for enjoyable reading and his florid and opinionated style are a welcome breath of fresh air in a world that to often only references popular culture with other pop culture references.

Mendelsohn brings a classicist's eye to modern pieces and reminds each of us that a critics job is to inform and contextualize the work they study. Nov 27, Ivan rated it really liked it. Mendelsohn is a culture critic for The New York Review of Books and in this volume collects thirty essays on film, books, and theatre that deal mostly with gay themes. Reading these pieces is the Mendelsohn is a culture critic for The New York Review of Books and in this volume collects thirty essays on film, books, and theatre that deal mostly with gay themes.

Dec 15, Cody rated it liked it. Sep 15, bookish rated it really liked it.

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Click here for a list of interest-specific sites grouped by category. If you are located outside the U. Whether he's on Broadway or at the movies, considering a new bestseller or revisiting a literary classic, Daniel Mendelsohn's judgments over the past fifteen years have provoked and dazzled with their deep erudition, disarming emotionality, and tart wit. Writing with a lively intelligence and arresting originality, he brings his distinctive combination of scholarly rigor and conversational ease to bear across eras, cultures, and genres, from Roman games to video games.

Together these thirty brilliant and engaging essays passionately articulate the themes that have made Daniel Mendelsohn a crucial voice in today's cultural conversation: How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken makes it clear that no other contemporary thinker is as engaged with as many aspects of our culture and its influences as Mendelsohn is, and no one practices the vanishing art of popular criticism with more acuity, humor, and feeling.

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International Customers If you are located outside the U. About Product Details Praise Whether he's on Broadway or at the movies, considering a new bestseller or revisiting a literary classic, Daniel Mendelsohn's judgments over the past fifteen years have provoked and dazzled with their deep erudition, disarming emotionality, and tart wit.