PRAISE FOR AGITATIONS: ESSAYS ON LIFE AND LITERATURE Arthur Krystal is an elegant subversive, an “inside agitator” in the highest sense of the phrase. His Agitations are warmed and illuminated by the burning candor of a bookish man who—so he attests—has lost his appetite for books. His voice is companionable yet blunt, graceful but trenchant, and by turns learned, informed, witty. Best of all, he addresses serious questions with the tools of a true essayist: a ready heart, a sharp mind, and no preconception of the answers. Finalist, The 2003 PEN Award for the art of the essay Whether he is writing literary essays that wear their learning lightly or familiar essays that breathe the spirit of Montaigne and Hazlitt, Arthur Krystal’s work is a pleasure to read: conversational in tone, casually provocative, and enlivened by apt metaphors and felicitous quotations…His paradoxical approach invites disagreement, but, to an astonishing degree, it gives us the fl ow and cadence of someone actually thinking. Morris Dickstein Krystal celebrates the author compelled to write by a sense of mortality and the critic qualifi ed to judge literature by traits of temperament and taste … And as his vibrant, well-considered essays reveal, Krystal has not entirely relinquished hope that ‘’books, despite the critics’ polemics, are still the truest expressions of the human condition.’’ Elizabeth Mary Sheehan, The New York Times Book Review [Krystal] sees the activities of writing and reading as deeply connected to basic human questions of life, death, religion, value, and taste. In graceful, conversational prose, he both argues and demonstrates his points, easily combining his knowledge of history and philosophy with the personal to give readers a view of an engaged mind.” Library Journal Arthur Krystal’s amazing essays in Agitations restore intel- ligence, wit and sanity to the life of the mind. I regard it as a must for the teaching of the essay. Krystal makes literature dance again and ideas matter. Barbara Probst Solomon Agitations: Essays on Life and Literature is a bracing antitoxin to the politics and theory passing for criticism in today’s academic world… Arthur Krystal’s mind and style manage to fl ourish in a postmodern culture where literature has—in his fi ne phrasing—“become the center that is somehow beside the point. His short but rangy essays now make up a book that is uniformly stimulating and at times even noble. Thomas Mallon PRAISE FOR THE HALF-LIFE OF AN AMERICAN ESSAYIST Krystal’s conversational prose is an instrument adaptable to subjects as light as laziness and as serious as sin. Wide reading and cogent arguments are leavened with wit, irony and striking turns of phrase—altogether what essays should be. Jacques Barzun It is a superb book, winning the rare literary trifecta of being well-written, well-reasoned, and well-researched. [The] essays are not only a pleasure to read one by one—they are a pleasure to read paragraph by paragraph. Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Krystal makes a vigorous case for the virtues of old-fashioned literary criticism, twitting the navel gazers of “creative nonfi ction,” which he dismisses as just a fancy word for memoir: and he’s not afraid of weighty topics: he slogs through the notebooks of Paul Valéry, ponders different theories of beauty and offers a defense of the seven deadly sins. Matthew Price, The New York Times Book Review Arthur Krystal’s essays shine like a searchlight through the fog of contemporary culture. Vivid, sharp, and enlightening, they keep a steady keel through roiling waters. These essays are as exciting about such arcana as the history of the typewriter and eighteenth-century boxing as they are about universals such as money, laziness, and beauty. Edward Mendelson, Lionel Trilling Professor of the Humanities, Columbia University A well-crafted set of eclectic essays covering subjects ranging from the history of the typewriter, to ex-slave turned pugilist Tom Molineaux, to the Mid-Century Book Society. As with his previous work, his latest output derives its strength from Krystal’s dry wit and his seeming inability to pull any punches…Whether you agree with him or not, this is refreshingly good stuff. Library Journal Reading Krystal on beauty, sin, typewriters, laziness, death, duelling or reading, one has no sense of what one is getting into—beyond something one feels impelled to get more deeply into…To read one Krystal essay is to become a Krystal reader, and to want more than his two fi ne books, Agitations and The Half-Life of an American Essayist. Wyatt Mason, Harper’s Magazine Arthur Krystal is smart, keenly observant, death on pretension, and a prose writer of genuine style—qualities that combine to make him a superior essayist. Joseph Epstein When was the last time you settled in with a collection of essays and read straight through? … Literate, original, conversational, witty, allusive, written for an educated general reader, the dozen pieces brought together here range over an amazingly wide terrain … May the tradition of writing essays such as his never decay. Joan Baum, WLIU Radio Whether writing on topics such as beauty, sin or laziness, literary essayist Arthur Krystal embodies the very best of what the essay should be: informative, interesting and eclectic. Elucidating his subjects by way of his literary yet accessible style, his refreshingly snarky wit shines through in a way that’s completely endearing. Bibliobuffet Arthur Krystal is the George Clooney of the essay world, with his debonair vocabulary, utilization of complex yet lucid sentence structure, spot-on pacing, and an understanding of the history of the essay. The Adventures of the Garbageman’s Daughter This page intentionally left blank EXCEPT WHEN I WRITE This page intentionally left blank EXCEPT WHEN I WRITE REFLECTIONS OF A RECOVERING CRITIC ARTHUR KRYSTAL 1