Download or read book Some Unfinished Chaos written by Arthur Krystal and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned American essayist and screenwriter explores the complicated life and its dramatically changing backdrop of one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century
Download or read book Some Unfinished Chaos written by Arthur Krystal and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surely enough has been written about F. Scott Fitzgerald, the man who coined "the Jazz Age" and symbolized the Roaring Twenties, whose very name conjures up a meteoric rise and an equally spectacular fall? But the better question might be, Why has so much ink been spent on a writer who completed only four novels, who fell from grace in the 1930s only to be resurrected twenty years later? The answer, according to the cultural critic Arthur Krystal, "is the problem that is Fitzgerald." Drawn to the glitter of fame but aspiring to the empyrean heights of Joseph Conrad and James Joyce, Fitzgerald careened from the perfection of The Great Gatsby to the hack world of Hollywood screenwriting, penning stories that were either brilliant distillations of the age or superficial works of fiction. Like America itself, Fitzgerald was a work in progress, a self-created and conflicted human being striving for ideals that neither he nor the nation could ever live up to. Beset by contradictions, buoyed by hope, fueled by alcohol, unable to settle permanently in any one place, Fitzgerald possessed what John Updike aptly described as "an aptitude for chaos and a dream of order." In this unusual and concise biography—more a layering of impressions than a chronological guide—Krystal gives us not only the peripatetic and turbulent life of a cultural icon but also the intellectual sweep of a period in history that created our modern America. Some Unfinished Chaos delivers a nuanced portrait of a man whose various sides embodied the trends, passions, and pursuits of the imperfect society that both glorified and dismissed him.
Download or read book Paradise Lost written by David S. Brown and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-22 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pigeonholed as a Jazz Age epicurean and an emblem of the Lost Generation, Fitzgerald was at heart a moralist struck by the nation’s shifting mood and manners after WWI. Placing him among Progressives such as Charles Beard, Randolph Bourne, and Thorstein Veblen, David Brown reveals Fitzgerald as a writer with an encompassing historical imagination.
Download or read book Except When I Write written by Arthur Krystal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When cultural critics with such wildly divergent views as Jacques Barzun, Christopher Hitchens, Joseph Epstein, Dana Gioia, and Morris Dickstein all agree about the merits of one contemporary essayist, shouldn't you find out why? "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. Keenly observant and death on pretension, Krystal examines the world of books without ever losing sight of the world beyond them. Literature may be the bedrock on which these essays rest, but as F. R. Leavis aptly noted, "One cannot seriously be interested in literature and remain purely literary in interests." Except When I Write is a reminder of both the pleasure and the power of a well-tuned essay.
Download or read book This Thing We Call Literature written by Arthur Krystal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his fourth book of essays, acclaimed cultural critic Arthur Krystal surveys the world of letters in its academic, literary, and populist incarnations--just to make sure those divisions still apply. What he finds is that the ground has shifted. With Lionel Trilling at his back, Krystal casts a cold eye on contemporary culture and discerns a lack of discrimination between the truly great and the merely good, and the fairly good and just plain bad. Critical but not angst-ridden, he deplores tunnel vision on both sides of the culture wars. Presumptive cultural boundaries have no place here. Krystal admires Bob Dylan and Elmore Leonard without including them in a purely literary pantheon. He endorses the Great Books without necessarily voting the Republican ticket. In essays about the meaning of the novel, the role of music in poetry, genre fiction vs. literary fiction, the contributions of the superlative critic Erich Auerbach, and the strange alliance of neurology and aesthetics, as well as in lighter pieces about reviewing and list-making, Krystal brings his own brand of discriminating intelligence to a spectrum of received opinions whose flaws and cracks otherwise go unnoticed.
Download or read book Scott Fitzgerald written by Jeffrey Meyers and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scott Fitzgerald, a romantic and tragic figure who embodied the decades between the two world wars, was a writer who took his material almost entirely from his life. Despite his early success with The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald battled against failure and disappointment. This book, by the acclaimed biographer of Hemingway, is the first to analyze frankly the meaning as well as the events of Fitzgerald's life and to illuminate the recurrent patterns that reveal his inner self. Meyers emphasizes Fitzgerald's alcoholism, Zelda's illnesses and her doctors, Fitzgerald's love affairs both before and after her breakdown, and his wide-ranging friendships, from the polo star Tommy Hitchcock to the Hollywood executive Irving Thalberg. His writer friends included Ring Lardner, John Dos Passos, James Joyce, Edith Wharton, and Dorothy Parker. His friend and lifelong hero, Ernest Hemingway, was a harsh critic of both his behavior and his novels, but Fitzgerald accepted this with remarkable humility. Meyers portrays the volatile connection between these two writers and Fitzgerald's marriage to the schizophrenic Zelda with insight and poignancy. Meyers also discusses Fitzgerald's fascinating relationship with his daughter, Scottie. Exercising a fine critical balance, he details Fitzgerald's weaknesses but ultimately reveals a man capable of fierce loyalty and great moral courage.
Download or read book The Half life of an American Essayist written by Arthur Krystal and published by David R. Godine Publisher. This book was released on 2007 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A vigorous case for the virtues of old-fashioned literary criticism."--New York Times Book Review In his first book, Agitations: Essays on Life and Literature, which was heralded by such diverse critics as Jacques Barzun and Morris Dickstein, Arthur Krystal demonstrated that the literary essay is alive and well. Conversational in tone, but capable of addressing the political and semiotic methods adopted by the academy, Krystal's clear and allusive style constituted a reprimand to the fashionable idea that literature is the theorists' domain. His new book, The Half-Life of an American Essayist, continues to demonstrate that the literary essay in the right hands can itself be a subset of literature. Whether he's examining the evolution of the typewriter, the nature of sin, the cultural implications of physiognomy, the works of Paul Valery and Raymond Chandler, or his own ineffable laziness, Krystal's buoyant prose always speaks to the common reader. The twelve essays in Half-Life--the title is from Goethe's "Experience is only half of experience"--go deeper than the standard book piece; they hew to the line first drawn by Montaigne and later extended by Dr. Johnson, Hazlitt, Woolf, and Orwell. Although there may be no preordained way of writing about literature, Krystal takes his cue from Edwin Denby, who maintained that the first duty of the critic is to be "interesting." No matter how large the subject--whether it is the history of boxing or the growth of the Holocaust industry, Krystal paints broad subjects with precise brushstrokes. Erudite, lettristic, and informative, his essays are still accessible to the general reader. The reason is simple: as Dr. Johnson noted, "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure." To this one might add that there is satisfaction to be had in the effort itself. How else could one write as committedly and entertainingly about Paul Valery's Cahiers as about Joe Louis's left jab?
Download or read book Return to Chaos written by Craig Shaw Gardner and published by Simon Pulse. This book was released on 1998 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
Download or read book Order from Chaos written by Liz Davenport and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2001-12-18 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Six Steps to Organizational Freedom Do you: *Miss important deadlines at work? *Forget to return urgent phone calls? *Lose papers that were “just here a minute ago”? *Have multiple layers of sticky notes on your computer? *Leave projects unfinished for days, weeks, or even months at a time? If any of these sound familiar, then you are among the ranks of the disorganized—whether mildly or completely—and Liz Davenport has written this book just for you. Order from Chaos is the organizing book for disorganized people. In six easy steps she offers a system that will help you clean up your act. She demonstrates how to clear your desk by teaching you what's trash and why, reveals what a calendar is really meant to be, and provides a no-fail system for prioritization. At the end of the day, your desk will be clear and your mind will be free to relax. Rather than offering overcomplicated instructions for filing systems and time management plans, Order from Chaos focuses on ease of use. There is not one person—from office assistant to CEO—who will not benefit from this straightforward, easy-to-maintain plan.
Download or read book Total Chaos written by Jean-Claude Izzo and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ex-cop takes on the mafia in the blockbuster novel that kicks off the Marseilles trilogy with what “may be the most lyrical hard-boiled writing yet” (The Nation). In Jean-Claude Izzo’s “Mediterranean noir” mysteries, the city of Marseilles is explosive, breathtakingly beautiful, and deadly. Total Chaos introduces readers to Fabio Montale, a disenchanted cop who turns his back on a police force marred by corruption and racism and, in the name of friendship, takes the fight against the mafia into his own hands. Ugo, Manu, and Fabio grew up together on the mean streets of Marseilles where friendship means everything. They promised to stay true to one another and swore that nothing would break their bond. But people and circumstances change. Ugo and Manu have been drawn into the criminal underworld of Europe’s toughest and most violent city. When Manu is murdered and Ugo returns from abroad to avenge his friend’s death, only to be killed himself, it is left to the third in this trio, Det. Fabio Montale, to ensure justice is done. Despite warnings from both his colleagues in law enforcement and his acquaintances in the underworld, Montale cannot forget the promise he once made Manu and Ugo. He’s going to find their killer no matter the consequences. “One of the masterpieces of modern noir.” —The Washington Post “Like the best noir writers—and make no mistake, he is among the best—Izzo not only has a keen eye for detail . . . but also digs deep into what makes men weep.” —Time Out New York “The holy grail of noir fiction . . . a fast paced and stylishly told modern tragedy.” —NB Magazine
Download or read book The Unfinished Angel written by Sharon Creech and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-09-22 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech crafts a truly endearing story, one that is imbued with happiness, wonder, and an appreciation for all the little things that make life big. With beautiful, fresh new cover art, this is a gem of a book. In the winding stone tower of the Casa Rosa, in a quiet little village in the Swiss Alps, lives one very unlikely angel—one that is still awaiting her instructions from the angel-training center. What happens to an angel who doesn't know her mission? She floats and swishes from high above, watching the crazy things that "peoples" say and do. But when a zany American girl named Zola arrives in town and invades the Casa Rosa, dogs start arfing, figs start flying through the air, lost orphans wander in, and the village becomes anything but quiet. And as Zola and the angel work together to rescue the orphans, they each begin to realize their purpose and learn that there is magic in the most ordinary acts of kindness.
Download or read book The Culture We Deserve written by Jacques Barzun and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 1989-05 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essence of culture is interpenetration. From any part of it the searching eye will discover connections with another part seemingly remote. If from my descriptions the reader finds this wide-angled view sharpened or expanded, my purpose in publishing these pages will have been served.
Download or read book Free written by Kristen Ashley and published by Rock Chick LLC. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 757 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through good times, bad times and times of war, Cole “Rush” Allen grew up in the Chaos Motorcycle Club. Along this journey, he watched his father, Tack, and his MC brothers fight, sweat, bleed and die to steer the Club to legitimacy. And they’ve got one more battle on their hands. A battle they have to win. But when Rush meets the woman who put herself right in the thick of it, he knows he has to stop at nothing to get her out. Rebel Stapleton has lost someone she loves to murder and she’s the kind of woman who’s going to do something about it. She puts her career on the line, and her life, to bring the man who did it to justice. That is, she does this until Rush Allen intervenes. Chaos is at war and they’re about to face the ultimate showdown. They’ll have to negotiate skeletons from the past, enemies becoming allies, and loved ones in the line of fire on their ride to be… Free.
Download or read book The Serpent Papers written by Jessica Cornwell and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Serpent Papers introduces readers to Anna Verco, a young literary researcher whose involvement in a series of mysterious murders in contemporary Barcelona brings her face to face with the ancient worlds of alchemy, magic and explosive historical secrets concealed in long-hidden manuscripts. Jessica Cornwell’s debut novel is a stylish, sophisticated literary thriller that will enthrall readers of The Historian, The Name of the Rose, The Thirteenth Tale and The Da Vinci Code. Barcelona, Summer 2003. Three women are sacrificed to an unknown purpose, their skin carved with a cryptic alphabet, and their tongues cut from their mouths. Sent beautiful, sinister letters—clues, or confessions?—Inspector Fabregat cannot decipher the warnings within. As Barcelona explodes in revelry on the Festival of St. Joan, Natalia Hernandez, flower of the National Theatre and Catalan idol, lies broken on the steps of the Cathedral. The city bays for blood, and Fabregat chases riddles and shadows—signs that whisper of secrets beyond his grasp. Barcelona, Winter 2014. Anna Verco—academic, book thief, savant—unearths letters hidden for centuries from a lightning-struck chapel in Mallorca. What they reveal compels her and Fabregat to reignite the Hernandez investigation. Every page she turns conceals a coded message; every street she treads leads her deeper into the labyrinth. As Fabregat baits her with suspects, and threats darken her steps, Anna hunts her own prey—the book that began it all, a medieval revelation written in the language of witches and alchemists: The Serpent Papers. Anna believes this book will unlock the mystery. She does not yet know she is the key.
Download or read book Unfinished Business written by J.A. Jance and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this heart-pounding and sharply written thriller from J.A. Jance, the “grand master of the genre” (The Providence Journal), Ali Reynolds’s personal life is thrown into turmoil just as two men show up on the scene—a former employee of her husband’s who has just been released from prison and a serial killer who sets his sights a little too close to home. Mateo Vega, a one-time employee of Ali Reynold’s husband, B. Simpson, has spent the last sixteen years of his life behind bars. According to the courts, he murdered his girlfriend. But Mateo knows that her real killer is still on the loose, and the first thing he’s going to do when he gets a taste of freedom is track him down. After being granted parole, a wary Mateo approaches Stu Ramey of High Noon Enterprises for a reference letter for a job application, but to his surprise, Stu gives him one better: He asks him to come on board and work for B. once again. Just as Mateo starts his new job, though, chaos breaks out at High Noon—a deadbeat tenant who is in arrears has just fled, and tech expert Cami Lee has gone missing. As Ali races to both find a connection between the two disappearances and help Mateo clear his name with the help of PI J.P. Beaumont, tragedy strikes in her personal life, and with lives hanging in the balance, she must thread the needle between good and evil before it’s too late.
Download or read book Order Chaos Order written by Philip Stehle and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the confusion among physicists at the beginning of the 20th century when experimental findings kept not fitting into their mechanical view of the universe, the theoretical speculations and experimental innovations they responded with, and the new science that emerged. The mathematical details are set apart in boxes to allow nontechnical readers to engage the flow of the narrative uninterrupted. Paper edition (unseen), $29.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
