Six Names of Beauty

Lovely and enjoyable and illuminating book, with chapters on six different names and conceptions of beauty. However, to experience its merits you must clear away some obstacles. This is not a scholarly book, so do not expect it to be one or you will see only its faults. It is not even a collection of essays. The book is written in a very personal voice, and it is more conversational than anything else, with the stance and tone changing the way it might in a conversation. Sartwell also writes in a more unrestrained way than most, and although the two are quite different in other respects, in this he reminds me of the critic David Hickey. The rewards of this book are not meager. Sartwell talks us through Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Japanese, Navajo, and English names for beauty. His running commentary is full of surprising connections and juxtapositions, often taken from his own life. Although he differentiates the different approaches to beauty, his own mind is strongly synthetic, and there is an underlying conviction, supported in his examples, that these different beauties are all active in our experience in some way. This is one significant difference between contemporary scholarship, in which magnifying differences is a primary (and sometimes sole) merit, and Sartwell's writing, which differentiates in order to magnify relatively neglected and diminutive dimensions of (at least potentially) common experience. The upshot was that Sartwell actually helped me to differentiate some aspects of beauty that I had conflated--and to enjoy them more.

Impressive in so many ways: a clear focus that is simple yet profound and important. What a clear entry into a lively, elegant and learned discourse: six words in six languages and cultures for beauty. And what a delightful ride on a high-wire intellectural strand in Crispin Sartwell's facile and eclectic mind...it is a delight to share in his vast learning...and to be spoken to in crisp, contemporary language. The meaning of beauty is in our reaction to it, and the opportunity to share in Sartwell's reactions is an aesthetic holiday.