Moral Agents
Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers
گزارش تخلف
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
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نقد و بررسی
April 27, 2015
Mendelson takes a fascinating look at the public personas and private selves of eight well-known male writers in 20th-century America, profiling them in relation to literature and the larger culture. The book begins with cultural critic Lionel Trilling, a "quietly dominating figure," and his belief that he had failed to be his true self in his writings and public life. Mendelson goes on to discuss the ways that Trilling's work was affected by his troubled marriage to Diana Trilling. The other profiles feature critics Dwight Macdonald and Alfred Kazin; authors Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, and William Maxwell; and poets W.H. Auden and Frank O'Hara. Each profile comes with a headingâ"Sage" for Trilling, "Mythmaker" for Mailer, "Outsider" for Kazinâthat describes in some way the writer's public image, though Mendelson often suggests that a one-word label can't provide the whole picture. He draws on letters, essays, short stories, passages from novels, and poems to explore his subjects' personal beliefs, such as how Auden related his Christian faith to his homosexuality. The essays on Maxwell, Trilling, and Auden are more engaging than the others, but all offer welcome insight into the lives and impact of the authors.
February 1, 2015
Growing out of a series of articles originally commissioned by the New York Review of Books, this volume investigates the themes of morality and power in the lives of eight writers whose works exerted a significant influence on American literature and culture in the latter half of the 20th century: Lionel Trilling, Dwight Macdonald, Alfred Kazin, William Maxwell, Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, W.H. Auden, and Frank O'Hara. Mendelson (Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities, Columbia Univ.; The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have To Say About the Stages of Life) has heavily revised the original pieces and added much new material, including information gleaned from recently published letters and diaries. Each chapter contains a biographical profile and an assessment of the writer based on his response to some of the burning issues of the day, from the rise of communism to the sexual revolution. Mendelson's focus on "the conflicts between the inward, intimate private lives of the eight authors and the lives they led in public" ties the essays together; several of the authors (Trilling, Kazin, Mailer, and Bellow), it should be noted, faced a unique issue: their need to wrestle with their identification as Jews. VERDICT Those interested in the role these writers played as public intellectuals--and in the larger issue of the relationship of literature to politics--will welcome this engaging read.--William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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