<![CDATA[How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays]]>

false <![CDATA[How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1256044235m/2187297.jpg 2187297 3 Whether he's on Broadway or at the movies, considering a new bestseller or revisiting a literary classic, Daniel Mendelsohn's judgments over the past fifteen years have provoked and dazzled with their deep erudition, disarming emotionality, and tart wit. Now How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken reveals all at once the enormous stature of Mendelsohn's achievement and demonstrates why he is considered one of our greatest critics. Writing with a lively intelligence and arresting originality, he brings his distinctive combination of scholarly rigor and conversational ease to bear across eras, cultures, and genres, from Roman games to video games. His interpretations of our most talked-about films—from the work of Pedro Almodóvar to Brokeback Mountain, from United 93 and World Trade Center to 300, Marie Antoinette, and The Hours—have sparked debate and changed the way we watch movies. Just as stunning and influential are his dispatches on theater and literature, from The Producers to Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, from The Lovely Bones to the works of Harold Pinter. Together these thirty brilliant and engaging essays passionately articulate the themes that have made Daniel Mendelsohn a crucial voice in today's cultural conversation: the aesthetic and indeed political dangers of imposing contemporary attitudes on the great classics; the ruinous effect of sentimentality on the national consciousness in the post-9/11 world; the vital importance of the great literature of the past for a meaningful life in the present. How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken makes it clear that no other contemporary thinker is as engaged with as many aspects of our culture and its influences as Mendelsohn is, and no one practices the vanishing art of popular criticism with more acuity, humor, and feeling. 2193004 1 8 2008 How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays total:41|5:18|4:17|3:5|2:1|1:0| 41 175 141 21 4 0 false false Mon May 11 11:41:57 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 19:15:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Jan 25 20:36:28 -0800 2009 Sat Dec 27 14:13:33 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 25 20:36:28 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 09 21:50:59 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 09 22:07:20 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Fri Sep 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Nov 01 12:35:16 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 11 12:53:17 -0700 2009 1
OK, so why put this on your "must read" list? To start, Mendelsohn is a brilliant critic who writes insightfully and without condescension to author, work or audience (reader, movie-goer, etc.). Even when he utterly demolishes his subject, he never descends to snark o...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 28 04:27:00 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 28 04:31:07 -0700 2008 Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy, and with that became enthralled with the ancient world. “I became a classicist because of Alexander the Great…the romantic blend of the youthful hero, that Od...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Jan 16 19:51:57 -0800 2009 Wed Aug 20 13:02:20 -0700 2008 Fri Jan 16 19:51:57 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 17 12:22:47 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 28 15:22:53 -0700 2008
...more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Oct 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 22 07:01:53 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 16 08:54:00 -0700 2008 way more brilliant than you, but who would never ever make you feel bad about it. On the face of things, Mendelsohn's concern seems to be the classics--even when writing about contemporary novels or film, ancie...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Jan 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 12:36:40 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 12:47:31 -0800 2009 Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe is especially powerful (lesson for readers: always examine those footnotes!).]]> 4 1 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 22 09:12:58 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 18:00:11 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Nov 06 01:08:34 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 01:10:35 -0800 2009 2 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 22 16:48:20 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 22 16:49:01 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 26 18:32:18 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 18:33:38 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Mar 24 18:16:43 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 18:29:57 -0700 2009 San Francisco Chronicle, NY Observer, Brooklyn Rail, Time Out New York, NPR more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Sep 11 14:38:34 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 05:46:42 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 11 09:57:52 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 02:47:21 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Sep 06 08:42:38 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 06 04:14:46 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 06 08:42:38 -0700 2008 Selection of reviews by Daniel Mendelsohn, mainly from the New York Review of Books, each viewed from the perspective of a classicist. The critique of Brokeback Mountain made me weep--it so eloquently corrected the misreadings of the film, even those of its makers, publicists, and admirers. A...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Aug 29 12:20:29 -0700 2008 Fri Feb 06 06:08:25 -0800 2009 New York Review of Books, and it's having the effect of making me want to experie...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 22 13:06:51 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 28 08:36:49 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 22 13:06:51 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Jul 16 07:58:39 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 16 08:00:29 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=2187297