Overview

Lauded by the critics Dana Gioia, Morris Dickstein, Edward Mendelson, Christopher Hitchens, Joseph Epstein, and Michael Dirda alike, Arthur Krystal has written for publications as varied as Harper’s, the New Criterion, Raritan, the American Scholar, and Sports Illustrated. In characteristically lucid prose, Krystal offers here—if he is to be believed—his last collection. These eleven essays and one evocative story range in subject matter from the depredations of aging and the anomalies of cultural appropriation to the friendship between Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling and the day Muhammad Ali punched Krystal in the face.

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9780813950624

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"An essayist, besides being able to write, should possess 'a well-stocked mind, ' leaving open the question of what it is stocked with. Consider, for example, Arthur Krystal's A Word or Two Before I Go: Essays Then and Now, which opens with a pleasing air of wry despondency. . . . This Eeyore-like plangency runs softly throughout Krystal's pages but dominates the superb 'Old News: Why We Can't Tell the Truth About Aging' . . . . Other essays in this companionable book include an appreciation of the poet John Ashbery; reminiscences of Krystal's teacher, mentor and friend Jacques Barzun; reflections on the books that shaped his mind and taste; meditations on boxing; and -- daring greatly--a thoughtfully balanced answer to the question 'Is Cultural Appropriation Ever Appropriate?'--Michael Dirda ""The Washington Post"""

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Arthur Krystal has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Washington Post, among other publications. His book Agitations: Essays on Life and Literature was a finalist for the 2003 Pen Award for the art of the essay.

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