Starred review from July 2, 2012
Wide-ranging and absorbing, this new collection of essays from Mendelsohn (The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million), is a joy from start to finish. Mendelsohn is a critic who consistently takes his subjects seriously, be they TV shows (Mad Men), 3-D blockbusters (Avatar), or the poems of Rimbaud. Though the author rarely lets us forget that he is a scholar of ancient Greek culture, connections drawn between Ovid and the Broadway musical Spider-man, or Sophocles and the story of the Titanic are frequently illuminating, even if occasionally self-aggrandizing. There are enjoyable embers of controversy scattered through the essays, too, such as Mendelsohn’s self-conscious critique of the recent vogue for memoir, a slightly cranky putdown of Mad Men, or a chiding review of Alan Hollinghurst that provoked a brief flurry of letters upon publication in the New York Review of Books. Along with perceptive essays on Anne Carson, Jonathan Franzen, Susan Sontag, and more, the collection adds up to a wonderfully eclectic set of musings on the state of contemporary culture and the enduring riches of classical literature. Agent: Lydia Wills.
Starred review from September 1, 2012
Another top-notch collection of previously published criticism from Mendelsohn (How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken, 2008, etc.). "There rarely are any real 'barbarians, ' " the author writes. "What others might see as declines and falls look, when seen from the bird's-eye vantage point of history, more like shifts, adaptations, reorganizations." This long-range perspective distinguishes Mendelsohn's criticism from that of less erudite and measured peers. The opening section, "Spectacles," ranges from Avatar to Mad Men with refreshing matter-of-factness, pinpointing the cultural significance of commercial forms of art without over- or understating their merits. Mendelsohn's analysis of why Julie Taymor was precisely the wrong director for the Broadway musical Spider-Man is particularly sharp. Mendelsohn's assessments can be negative, even dismissive, but they are not overheated or personally nasty. The near-exception is "Boys Will Be Boys," a severe going-over of Edmund White's memoir City Boy (2009), and even that is less a slam than a forthright statement of the differences between two generations of gay writers. Although Mendelsohn mused at length on questions of homosexual identity in The Elusive Embrace (1999), his criticism reveals an openly gay writer comfortably connected to the culture at large. He is equally acute and balanced on the memoir craze, the pleasures of Leo Lerman's journals and "the fundamental failure of genuine good humor" in Jonathan Franzen's work. Mendelsohn's tendency to announce that there is a single key insight that crucially explains a given artist's work can be irritating, but often his insight is key: Susan Sontag's affinity with French classicism, for example, or ultra-sophisticate Noel Coward's grounding in "the stolid values of the decidedly unsophisticated lower-middle-class." Incisive, reflective and unfailingly stimulating. It wouldn't hurt Mendelsohn to occasionally pass up an opportunity to remind readers he's the smartest guy in the room, but then again, he almost always is.
COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
September 1, 2012
This collection of 24 essays originally published separately between 1999 and 2011 links classic writings to examples of contemporary popular culture like the Spider-Man musical, the TV series Mad Men, and Wikipedia, which Mendelsohn (contributing editor, Travel &Leisure; The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million) compares to the Iliad: "it is the thing as a whole that matters, not only the kernel of text someone first put up." In "Why She Fell," Mendelsohn associates the Broadway Spider-Man"fiasco" to Greek drama by describing the crucial elements: "great talent, tremendous artistic ambition, and then humiliation." Mendelsohn writes that Mad Men allows Baby-Boomer viewers to indulge in a fantasy of what their parents may have been like before they had children. Finally, in "Unsinkable (Why We Can't Let Go of the Titanic)," he recalls a gift he received at age 12: membership in the Titanic Enthusiasts of America (now the Titanic Historical Society). With a gracious nod to public libraries and to reading, Mendelsohn explains how he read all the Titanic books owned by the public library and spent his meager allowance to buy others. VERDICT Mendelsohn is a deep thinker with insightful charm. All fans of intelligent thought on popular culture will appreciate his commentary.--Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL
Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 15, 2012
Among memoirist and critic Mendelsohn's remarkable achievements stand his exceptional translations of the revered Greek poet C. P. Cavafy, who provides the provocative title of Mendelsohn's second substantial and adventurous essay collection. Mendelsohna classicist who loves the hunt of critical thinking and is, by turns, emotional, sly, and acerbically wittysituates himself at the crossroads of the ancient world and our own. In two-dozen avidly referenced and discursive essays and reviews originally published primarily in the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker, he dissects Stephen Mitchell's fast-paced and very idiosyncratic translation of the Iliad and relies on the Greek tragedies as a gauge for various spectacles, including the failed Broadway musical Spider-Man. Mendelsohn keenly parses James Cameron's debt to The Wizard of Oz in Avatar, and his peculiar alienation from humanity and human life, and offers a shrewd and affecting perspective on Mad Men. Among his literary subjects are Oscar Wilde, Edmund White, Alan Hollinghurst, Jonathan Franzen, and Jonathan Littell. An impressive and intriguing assemblage by a remarkably vigorous, genuinely cultivated, empathic, and passionate critic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)