Except When I Write

Reflections of a Recovering Critic

Arthur Krystal

Authored by distinguished, high-profile essayist: Krystal writes regularly for major periodicals like The New Yorker, Harper's, The New York Times Book Review, and The Washington Post
Written in a distinctive, engaging style that reveals Krystal as one of today's best essayists. elected for inclusion in forthcoming edition of Best American Essays, edited by Christopher Hitchens
Covers a breathtaking range of topics, from aphorisms to the night, Edgar Allan Poe to F. Scott Fitzgerald

Except When I Write

Reflections of a Recovering Critic

Arthur Krystal

Description

"I never think except when I sit down to write." - Attributed to Montaigne by Edgar Allan Poe From Montaigne in the sixteenth century to Orwell, Eliot, and Trilling in the twentieth, the best literary essayists combine a gift for observation with an abiding commitment to books. Although it may seem that books are becoming less essential and that a revolution in sensibility is taking place, the essays of Arthur Krystal suggest otherwise. Companionable without being chummy, engaged without being didactic, erudite without being stuffy, he demonstrates that literature, even in the digital age, remains the truest expression of the human condition.

Covering subjects as diverse as aphorisms, dueling, the night, and the 1960s, the essays gathered here offer the common reader uncommon pleasure. In prose that is both vibrant and elegant, Krystal negotiates among myriad subjects-from historical writing as exemplified by Jacques Barzun to the art of screenwriting as not so happily represented by F. Scott Fitzgerald. His cardinal rule as a writer? William Hazlitt's "Confound it, man, don't be insipid." No fear of that. Except When I Write is thoughtful in the most joyful sense-brimming with ideas in order to give us the flow and cadence of someone actually thinking.

Except When I Write

Reflections of a Recovering Critic

Arthur Krystal

Introduction
Chapter 1: Carpe Noctern: A little night history
Chapter 2: En Garde!The history of duelling
Chapter 3: Too True: The Art of the Aphorism
Chapter 4: Jacques Barzun
Chapter 5: The Great Depression
Chapter 6: Slow Fade: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood
Chapter 7: The Long Goodbye: Notes on the Sixties
Chapter 8: Except When I Write
Index

Except When I Write

Reflections of a Recovering Critic

Arthur Krystal

Author Information

Arthur Krystal

Arthur Krystal has written essays and book reviews for the New Yorker, Harpers, the American Scholar, the Washington Post Book World, and other places. He is the author of two collections of essays and two edited collections.

Except When I Write

Reflections of a Recovering Critic

Arthur Krystal

Reviews and Awards

"I am humbled before Krystal's virtues: clarity, variety, levity, gravity and the single trait without which all others are beside the point — humanity." - Wyatt Mason, Contributing writer, New York Times Magazine

"Arthur Krystal is a writer whose essays I always want to read even when I'm not interested in their subjects - until I become interested by reading them. What makes those subjects interesting is Krystal's personal voice: sympathetic, alert, skeptical, comic, sometimes sharp, sometimes extravagant and with a sharply-focused moral intelligence." - Edward Mendelson, Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University

"Arthur Krystal does what only the best writers can do: provides you with a deeper appreciation of the things you already cared about, awakens you to the things you didn't know to care about, and—on the strength of his intelligence, wit, and erudition—manages to engage you with the things you were sure you never cared about. His essays, many of which are collected here, are among my favorite prose works in recent memory, bar none." - David Bezmozgis, author of 'The Free World and Natasha, and Other Stories'

"'Except When I Write' reflects the varied cultural interests of an intellectual son-of-a-gun. Krystal's essays and reviews are unfailingly lucid and balanced-to-a-T." - The Arts Fuse

"The essays in 'Except When I Write' nearly all appeared in either Harper's or The New Yorker. That in itself speaks to their quality." - Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize critic and columnist for The Washington Post's Book World

Except When I Write

Reflections of a Recovering Critic

Arthur Krystal

From Our Blog

The Night Man (Or Why I'm Not a Novelist)

By Arthur Krystal I didn't know I wasn't cut out to be a novelist until I began to write a novella in the late Seventies about a writer who lived in a seedy hotel on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It was only then I realized that I knew practically nothing about the people who lived there. Let me amend that: I did know something about one of the tenants, although it was not information I went out of my way to find. It was handed to me on a small china plate with, if I recall correctly, pale blue filigree.

Posted on January 13, 2012

Read the blog post