As of This Writing: The Essential Essays, 1968-2002

Product Description"Clive James is in the tradition of Hazlitt, Bagehot, and Edmund Wilson, with a gusto to succeed theirs." John Bayley It is impossible not to be awed by the remarkable range and massive erudition of Clive James, one of the greatest literary critics of our age. In the tradition of Edmund Wilson, James is a brilliant stylist so perceptive (and funny) that he renders the twisted literary terrain of the twentieth century remarkably accessible. In As of This Writing James has assembled his most ambitious and expansive collection to date, a book that features forty-nine essays on poetry, film, culture, and fiction written between 1967 and 2001. Whether commenting on poets like Auden or Jarrell, novelists like D. H. Lawrence and James Agee (not to mention Judith Krantz), or filmmakers like Fellini or Bogdanovich, James delights his readers with his manic energy and critical aplomb. This volume is a literary education that few recent books can rival.From Publishers WeeklyOver the course of almost 50 essays, cultural pundit James only occasionally wears out his welcome, and very infrequently misses his mark. Four essays on Philip Larkin cover much the same ground, a piece on Twain, when it tries to rope in Vietnam and Kissinger, seems dated. Most often, however, James is either insightful (a study of Orwell) or else entertaining (a dismantling of Judith Krantz), and quite often he's both. Essays dealing with poetry and literature feature pieces on Robert Lowell, D.H. Lawrence, and Solzhenitsyn, while a section on culture and criticism comments on the life and works of Lillian Hellman, Evelyn Waugh and Betrand Russell. An additional pleasure are the postscripts where James comments on and provides explanations of (and sometimes excuses for) the ideas contained in these previously published essays. Through these illuminating and entertaining notes, the reader is given a kind of bifocal view, first through the myopic range of the original topic and then the wider view of James's critical hindsight. For instance, commenting on an essay on Auden, James writes, "The word `immediately' is used twice, which is twice too often...." It would be wrong to say that these afterthoughts are more enjoyable than the essays they comment on, but in many places, James's thoughts on his own thoughts are as penetrating as the thesis that sent his critical imagination wandering in the first place. A broad companion to Even as We Speak: New Essays 1993-2000 (which came out in paper last September), this latest collection acts as a prism through which to view James's entire career.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.From BooklistWhat qualities make a critic's work worth reading long after the newspaper or magazine in which it first appeared has been pulped Style, of course, and a firm grasp not only of the particulars of a book or film but also of the wider world in which it is created and absorbed. Australian-born and Cambridge-educated, James writes with fluent wit, remarkable warmth, deep knowledge, and an exhilarating sense of mission. His discussions of Ezra Pound, Galway Kinnell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Raymond Chandler, Mark Twain, and James Agee are startlingly illuminating; his take on Australian literature is invigorating and enlightening; and his response to Judith Krantz is absolutely hilarious. And within each finely choreographed critique shimmer such striking observations as "a culture can never flourish as a hedge against the world. It isn't a bastion for nationalism, it is an international passport." James is also a poet, novelist, memoirist, lyricist, and television performer, practices that contribute mightily to the grace and magnetism of his essays. The timelessness, acuity, and humanism of James' criticism is everywhere evident in this scintillating collection. Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reservedReview"Clive James is the funniest man we have." Anthony B
Author: James, Clive

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Binding: Hardcover

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0393051803

ISBN-13: 9780393051803