Nicholas Delbanco's Blog, page 5

Early Praise for LASTINGNESS

"Lucid, perceptive, and broad-ranging,  LASTINGNESS speaks to the greatest anxiety of the creative with wisdom-infused passion. This is a work to take gratefully to heart."

—Gish Jen, author of World and Town

"From where else but the panoramic cultural erudition of Nicholas Delbanco could such a tour-de-force of artistic sensitivity have come? This book is an engaging course in 20th century Western humanities, a tribute to the talents of aging men and women of creative genius and a literary gift to its readers. "

—Sherwin Nuland, author of How We Die

"Nicholas Delbanco's LASTINGNESS provides a guided tour par excellence  through some of the most interesting creative lives of two centuries.  His respectful, insightful, occasionally humorous portraits of artists from various and overlapping fields will remind readers of what we can learn not only from their work but from lives lived, and especially from choices brought on by age.  This book is a joy."

—Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Swan Thieves

"One of Nicholas Delbanco's finest novels is titled What Remains, and this book, too, is about what endures in art and in life as the artist grows older. Frequently surprising and always enlightening, LASTINGNESS has a style that mixes the eloquent and the rueful in about equal measure, and in all its paragraphs the book is both learned and wise."

—Charles Baxter, author of The Soul Thief

"And this is the reward accorded those who spend their life in art: For a brief period, and possibly far longer, they are not the fools of time."

Such grace attends these meditations on what and how some well made things outlive their makers.  Delbanco brings both scholarship and artistry to bear on Life & Time — lives and times he's known and studied, his own and his family's and wide circle of mentors, heroes, friends.  Intimate, intuitive, profoundly instructive, here is a catalogue of composers and musicians, painters and sculptors, poets and writers, assayed for their permanent worth: the gold they all eventually turned into—a sort of artistic post-mortem, deftly performed, by which we might discern the Cause of Life.  Better than eulogy or obituary, LASTINGNESS is a users manual for mere and aging mortals who traffic in creation.

—Thomas Lynch, author of Apparitions and Late Fictions

"Clearly, getting old and remaining supple-minded and even imaginative is a synaptical crapshoot: the body may be willing, but the mind lives its own devious life.  On this compelling subject Delbanco is highly readable, compassionate, learned and smart, and immensely informative."

—Richard Ford

"Nicholas Delbanco's brief lives of the long-lived are surprising in their substance, acute in their perceptions, and beautifully written.  His further ruminations on the entire subject of what great artists have accomplished late in life are all those things – and, conveniently, useful (and encouraging) for all of us standing near the precipice of old age."

—Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call

Publishers Weekly Review

Lastingness: The Art of Old Age

Nicholas Delbanco, Grand Central, $24.99 (288 p) ISBN 978-0-446-19964-3

Why do so many creative minds become more productive and flourish with age? Delbanco (The Beaux Arts Trio), one of America's most influential literary writers and critics, tackles this question, brushing aside the national obsession with youth to measure mature artists hitting their stride while meeting the demands of old age. Whether in the concert hall, on canvas, or on the page, the quality of lastingness–the ability to endure and hone one's talents despite advanced age or illness–is not guaranteed to all artists. Quoting Cyril Connolly, Delbanco writes, "the best thing that can happen for a writer is to be taken up very late or very early. " He approaches the theme of constancy and durability with wit and colorful detail, listing the talents who have thrived in old age: Herman Melville, Doris Lessing, Harriet Doerr, Georgia O' Keeffe, Alice Munro, Alice Neel, Philip Roth, and William Trevor. Delbanco presents a balanced, informed dialogue that never bores or gets long-winded. In the end, the skillful artist adapts to meet challenges in life and renews his or her creative impulses. (Jan.)

Readings Currently Scheduled for 2011

The following readings by Nicholas Delbanco have been scheduled in support of his latest work, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age.

1/31/11 — Borders Ann Arbor, MI 7:00pm

2/8/11 — Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor, MI time tbd

2/18/11 — The Book Stall, Winnetka, IL 6:30pm

3/6/11 — Book Soup, West Hollywood, CA 5:00pm

For more information, please visit the web sites for the locations above.

Library Journal: Review of LASTINGNESS The Art of Old Age

Library Journal: Review

Delbanco, Nicholas. Lastingness: The Art of Old Age. Grand Central.

Jan. 2011. c.288p. index. ISBN 9780446199643. $24.99. LIT

Prolific scholar and novelist Delbanco (Spring and Fall) applies his sound literary skills to this study of geniuses–as they aged–in the fields of literature, music, and the visual arts. Delbanco focuses on the fascinating question of why some people's creative talents flourish with age, while others' fade. He explores and explains our general societal conflict about our elders and the question of when to expect them to step aside. His profiles include Claude Monet, Giuseppe Verdi, W.B. Yeats, and Alice Neal, among others, all of whom lived until 70 or older and remained productive. Delbanco goes on to inquire into the essence of aging in America today and how creativity can actually increase with age, sharing his personal journey of discovery about his own achievements as he approaches age 70. VERDICT This erudite examination of growing old while continuing to make a difference will appeal to more learned, older readers with an interest in the arts and humanities.–Dale

Farris, Groves, TX

Kirkus Reviews: LASTINGNESS The Art of Old Age

Review Date: October 15, 2010

Publisher:Grand Central Publishing

Pages: 288

Price ( Hardback ): $24.99

Publication Date: January 24, 2011

ISBN ( Hardback ): 978-0-446-19964-3

Category: Nonfiction

A prolific author now in his late-60s examines why some artists remain productive, even innovative, in the dying of the light, while others opt not to rage but to rusticate.

Though Delbanco (The Count of Concord, 2008, etc.) confines himself to the visual arts, music and literature, he realizes the enormity, even impossibility, of doing justice to everyone who deserves attention. After some introductory ruminations on aging in America (it's not popular) and on the premature deaths of some notables, he begins his journey through his tangled subject with a discussion of his father, who practiced his cello into his 90s. Delbanco then moves to Herman Melville's late-life marvel (Billy Budd, unpublished in his lifetime) and a lengthy discussion of Shakespeare, who died in his 50s, an advanced age for the 17th century. The author follows with some brief biographical sketches of artists who labored long and well, among them Tolstoy, Hardy, Alice Neel and George Sand. Searching still for answers, he gives more lengthy treatments to nine more figures, including Casals, Monet, Yeats, Liszt and Lampedusa, whose late-life The Leopard (1958) was a phenomenon. Realizing the importance of good fortune, health and genetics, Delbanco also looks at brain science, and specifically at Picasso, who worked into his 90s—perhaps an exemplar, writes the author, of the notion that "competitive wrangling and brilliant innovation and sexual careerism may coexist." Delbanco provides an old-fashioned disquisition, not a self-help book, so he offers no bullet list of the Ten Things We Can All Do to Remain Productive Geniuses. However, he does extract from his wide reading and capacious imagination a few principles, among them the "desire to capture what disappears, to fix in melody or line or language what otherwise is mutable." In that vein, he reprints some eloquent comments on the subject supplied by John Updike, not long before he died in 2009 at age 76.

Shows that time's winged chariot can glisten brightly, even in the sunset.

The Washington Post: The Writing Life

Nicholas Delbanco was recently featured in The Washington Post's books section in a piece titled, "The Writing Life: Nicholas Delbanco." For this feature, Delbanco contributed an essay titled, "Remembering the Reys," and was interviewed by Marie Arana. That essay, as well as the podcast for the interview, are both available on The Washington Post website.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/13/AR2009101300940.html