Daniel Mendelsohn's reviews and essays on literary and cultural subjects appear frequently in The New York Review of Books andThe New Yorker. His books include a memoir, The Elusive Embrace, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; the international best seller The Lost- A Search for Six of Six Million; an acclaimed translation of the works of C. P. Cavafy; and a previous collection of essays, How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken. He teaches at Bard College.
“Our most irresistible literary critic. . . .Much of the fun of
reading Mendelsohn is his sense of play, his irreverence and
unpredictability, his frank emotional responses. . . .He forces the
[essay] form in directions Francis Bacon never imagined.” —The New
York Times Book Review
“A scrumptious stylist. . . .He writes better movie criticism than
most movie critics, better theatre criticism than most theatre
critics and better literary criticism than just about anyone. .
.practically every sentence of this book [is] an eye-opener.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“ Mendelsohn is now, and has been for some time, the finest critic
alive. . . . [The essays] proceed from an unparalleled
understanding of the Greek and Roman roots of storytelling, which
he braids into reviews with a subtlety and patience that is
beautiful to behold. . . . A supremely entertaining book.” —Toronto
Star
“ Mendelsohn’s work is absolutely vital in both senses of the
word—it breaths with an exciting intelligence often absent in
similar but stodgier writing, and it should be required reading for
anyone interested in dissecting culture.” —The Daily Beast
“ Wide-ranging and absorbing, this new collection of essays from
Mendelsohn is a joy from start to finish. . . . A wonderfully
eclectic set of musings on the state of contemporary culture and
the enduring riches of classical literature.” —Publishers Weekly
(Starred Review)
“A throwback. . . to the glorious public intellectuals of former
days such as Dwight Macdonald and Robert Warshow. . . . ‘Waiting
for the Barbarians’ adds up to more than the sum of its parts,
evidencing an impressive range, depth and nobility of mind.” —San
Francisco Chronicle
“ No one who these past years has followed the brilliant work of
Daniel Mendelsohn in the pages of The New York Review of Books, The
New Yorker, and The New York Times Book Review will be surprised by
the extraordinary range of interest this splendid collection
reveals. What is so remarkable is the consistency of acuity and
sympathy which he brings to all his subjects. . . .He is, it
becomes increasingly clear, one of our major critics.” —PEN Art of
the Essay Award Citation
“His essays often have a deft structure, building an essential
question that is left hanging. Keep reading . . . and eventually
you’ll arrive at the answer. But the pleasure is not in the answer,
necessarily—it’s in the process.” —National Book Critics Circle
Award Citation
“Mendelsohn brings to his subjects both an attentive eye and a
sympathetic mind. . . .Mixed reviews, in other hands often as dull
as ditchwater, become intellectual detective stories, and
Mendelsohn provides illuminating, elegant solutions.”
—Bookforum
“Waiting for the Barbarians is a demonstration of Mendelsohn’s
stunning ability to think—not for us but a step ahead of us as
readers, pulling out figments, fragments, and philosophies that we
might not catch. . . .Reading Mendelsohn is a bit like lucid
dreaming.” —Interview
“These essays demonstrate what Coleridge called, in a striking
phrase, ‘the armed vision,’ the highly trained critical intellect,
powered by real scholarship and warmed by wit and empathy.” —The
Denver Post
“ For Mendelsohn, TV is no less powerful or permanent than epic
poetry in shaping, or describing, a society. We are what we watch,
read and listen to. This may seem like a high-minded approach to
pop culture, but Mendelsohn’s not above sitting back with a fistful
of popcorn. . . . For the reader, it’s exhilarating to join him.”
—The Plain Dealer
"Mendelsohn is a deep thinker with insightful charm. All fans
of intelligent thought on popular culture will appreciate his
commentary." —Library Journal
"Even more than his earlier books about literature and culture, it
displays his characteristic strengths of style and judgment and his
distinctive and engaging voice. As always, he is surprising yet
convincing when he praises what practically everyone else condemns,
or sees through the pretensions and confusions of books and dramas
that everyone else admires." —Edward Mendelson, The New York Review
of Books
“Another top-notch collection of previously published criticism
from Mendelsohn." —Kirkus Reviews
"[Mendelsohn] is a brilliant storyteller, influenced by the Greek
masters he so admires…" —The Times of London
"A classicist by training and a critic by trade, he begins with a
challenging subject and gloriously complicates it by drawing on his
erudition, acumen, and passion for precision and bedrock
truth….These are works of brilliant and soulful criticism."
—Booklist
"Mendelsohn…is a gifted and entertaining writer. His prose is
gorgeous and lyrical and his subjects are smartly considered and
freshly revealed." —Vanity Fair
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