No Other Book: Selected Essays

Everything about this transaction was excellent: I obtained a fine book, in excellent condition, for a terrific price.

I came across this book about a year ago. I picked up a used copy of it, and read "The Age of Criticism." Afterwards I could not put the book down. I was not familiar with Jarrell's essays, and they amazed me. "The Age of Criticism" is one of the most prescient essays that I have ever read. These essays are in no way dated. They hold a position similar only to some of Dr. Johnson's best critical works. The only other comparison that I can make is to Paul Fussell. In other words, essays that are enornously insightful and will remain read (Unlike so many pieces of criticism). After reading Mr. Leithauser's selection, I bought Jarrell's four books of criticism, and have read them all. Some of the reviewers have complained about Mr. Leithauser's choices. I think it is great. A wonderful introduction to Jarrell's great essays. Mr. Leithauser's short selections for "A Jarrell Gallery," demonstrate quite easily the epigrammatic nature and customary brilliance of Jarrell (they include short selections from many of Jarrell's essays that he did not include in this Selected). In fact Mr. Leithauser's selection made me re-evaluate the editor. I still don't care for his poetry, but he's an intelligent man. I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in poetry (his essays on individual poets are exceptional. Though I often disagree with Jarrell's estimate of Graves, Williams, Moore, Cummings and others, they are nevertheless a delight to read--should not criticism be enjoyable??), the state of criticism (in other words, atrocious, which Jarrell had predicted--"The first generation [of critics] wrote distinguishably well; the second wrties indistiguishably ill; who knows how the third will write?"), and how criticism should be written (there is much we can learn here--he informs our own opinions (what he says of Pound, for example--much blue clay, but some wonderful diamonds within), he might change or force us to think about them, and he shows how to write). Jarrell can be a blistering critic, and that is delightful to read. What emerges, however, is not a cynical view or that of a curmudgeon, but an enormously positive approach simply to reading, and enjoying literature. He concludes one essay, brilliantly with, "Read at whim. Read at whim." He writes about what has so often been though, but never quite so well expressed.

So much of Jarrell's prose is either out-of-print or just so hard to find, that we are lucky to have this book. For those who lament the inclusion of so many pieces on pop culture, they need to remember that some of those pieces made Jarrell both popular but also got him in trouble. To not include them would be to misrepresent Jarrell historically (and deprive us of some very funny writing). Unfortunately, there really were only 2 Jarrell essays on Auden (he never got around to writing the book he planned), and one of those is here. Everything in this book is useful, and this is a good representative collection of Jarrell's prose.

The reader from Zion does have some legitimate points to make--that late essay on Stevens is sorely missed, and perhaps Brad Leithauser has indeed weighted the collection too heavily towards Jarrell's lamentations on contemporary culture. Yet I still can't understand how anybody with an ear for English prose could complain about this delightful, witty, supernaturally wise collection. And the nitpicking about the book's "precious" production values is even nuttier--what did you want, a volume bound in corrugated cardboard? Until the Library of America wises up and devotes a book to Jarrell--and really, between Poetry and the Age, Kipling Auden & Company, and The Third Book of Criticism, there's PLENTY of material--this one will have to do. And it does, handsomely. Can we stop the griping, please?

The reader from St. Louis (below) must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. I can't see anything so onerous about Randall Jarrell's splendid work being "Palgraved"--ie, anthologized. Sure, I might have made some different choices than Brad Leithauser did (for one thing, I would've omitted the more academic pieces about Auden and Housman), but only an insane person would actually object to reading the superb and sparkling prose in "No Other Book." And given the out-of-print status of the other titles, I'm grateful that this one is now readily available. Viva Jarrell!