How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays

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 or gratuitous sniping. Many times, I got the sense of a man exasperated with how close these artists get to creating something of real meaning/value but keep missing the target. In his introduction, Mendelsohn explains the criteria by which he judges - (1) Meaningful coherence of form and content; (2) Precise employment of detail to support (1); (3) Vigor and clarity of expression; and (4) Seriousness of purpose (p. xv) Quite independent of Mendelsohn, I'm happy (and perhaps a bit smug) to say my own judgments have come around to these selfsame points, even regarding the "brain candy" I may read when the "big issues" get tiresome. I find it nearly impossible to read a book anymore (or watch a movie for that matter)where the author can't write, doesn't take her job seriously, or both - even when it's "just" book #347 in Space Bimbos of the Black Sun series. Oh, but we live in a "dark age" of culture where far too often we eschew wrestling with real tragedy for sentimentalism; melodrama; and feel-good, Lifetime movie endings. This is a common theme in many of the essays found here, from the first essay on Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones through stagings of Tennessee Williams and Euripides, reviews of Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar, to Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. (Regarding the latter, Mendelsohn compares Stone's film to Aeschylus' The Persians, and makes the point that, even writing of a glorious Hellenic triumph (Marathon & Salamis), the Greek playwright chose to portray the reactions of the Persians, asking his Athenian audience "to think radically, to imagine something outside of their own experience, to situate the feelings they were having just then...in a vaster frame" (p. 452), whereas Stone's "pretty much exclusive emphasis thus far on the `good'...in these entertainments is noteworthy, because it reminds you of the unwillingness to grapple with and acknowledge the larger issues...which has characterized much of the natural response to this pivotal trauma (9/11)." (p. 451)) Mendelsohn has inspired me to try opera - a genre for which I have little liking. I don't know why. I understand neither Italian nor French but it's not like I object to subtitles - I love Hong Kong martial arts flicks. And I dated a woman who adored opera and enthralled me with her enthusiastic descriptions of the medium. Whatever the case, the author's analysis of the Met's recent staging of Lucia di Lammermoor "forced" me to check out a DVD of Joan Sutherland's version from the library, and as I write this review, listen to a CD of Ion Marin's version with Cheryl Studer and Placido Domingo. Who knows where this could lead? And, having read Mendelsohn's reviews of Troy and Ale

Readers of the New York Review of Books will be familiar with the writings of Daniel Mendelsohn, who has written dozens of reviews of literature, movies and theatre. How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken pulls together many of those reviews, covering everything from movies like "Kill Bill" and "The 300" to Broadway plays such as "The Glass Menagerie" and "The Producers" to books like "The Hours," "Middlesex" and new academic books on history. Why would anyone want to read a book of old reviews? Well, Mendelsohn is perhaps the best example of how this form can be used as a launching pad for examining large subjects like war and its culpabilities, sex and homosexuality, and human nature. That Mendelsohn does all of this by invoking a lens of the great classicists - Euripides, Homer, Sophocles - is a feat of a great and pointed intelligence. These are not just reviews, though they are that too. Mendelsohn is a critic, and a stringent and demanding one. Swayed by the opinions of neither the public nor other critics, he deftly, and with great care, strikes at the heart of faults of many books, plays and movies. Despite this, these reviews are not rants, nor are they petty or arrogant. Their power comes from the combination of Mendelsohn's intelligence with his great love of writing, movies and theatre. It is only with the greatest respect that he points out the failings, of both the works of art themselves, and of our culture. You might expect essays that invoke Sophicles and Homer to be difficult. Another great talent of Mendelsohn is his ability to write of these classic subjects in a very conversational manner - to, in fact, draw in readers who are not familiar with the classics the way he is, to serve as a bridge between the great ideas of history and the popular culture of today. As I read his essays, I found myself simultaneously intrigued, entertained, and educated - and interested in going back to read, and see, some of these books and movies again. Armchair Interviews says: An educational and fascinating read.

What a great book! I read it as compulsively as any whodunit while painlessly expanding my understanding of a wide range of artistic endeavors. I came away far better versed in the classics and with an expanded capacity to read, view and listen critically (in the best sense). I recommend this as a college text!

Mendelsohn, Daniel. "How Beautiful It Is and How It Can Easily It Can Be Broken", Harper 2008. Critical Essays Amos Lassen Daniel Mendelsohn first caught my attention with "The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity" in which brought together his personal history, culture, classics and explored who he is. Looking at his own homosexuality and Jewishness, he examined the conflicts within most of us. His next book, "The Lost" even amazed me more with his own personal take on the Holocaust. In "How Beautiful It Is", Mendelsohn gives us a collection of critical essays and they are stunning. Mendelsohn is a man who knows how to write with intelligence and wonderful originality as well as with a quick wit. The book covers a myriad of topics from stage and screen and video games to the nature of war. Mendelsohn starts off in the introduction by explaining what a critic is and what a critic does and he explains how the book is organized and why. There are five sections: "Heroines", "Heroics", "Closets", "Theater" and "War". Reading the reviews presented here gives the reader new ideas to think about and we can easily see how Mendelsohn became regarded as such an influential man of letters. Thirty essays comprise the book and Mendelsohn fears nothing and no one. I loved the essay on "Brokeback Mountain" and in it, Mendelsohn, we learn so much about the gay experience but it is really unfair to pick one essay over others as each is a gem and has something important to say.