A Jacques Barzun Reader: Selections from His Works – Eighty Witty and Graceful Essays on History, Baseball, and Crime Novels (Perennial Classics)

A Jacques Barzun Reader: Selections from His Works – Eighty Witty and Graceful Essays on History, Baseball, and Crime Novels (Perennial Classics)

Throughout his career Jacques Barzun, author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist From Dawn to Decadence , has always been known as a witty and graceful essayist, one who combines a depth of knowledge and a rare facility with words. Now Michael Murray has carefully selected eighty of Barzun's most inventive, accomplished, and insightful essays, and compiled them in one impressive volume. With subjects ranging from history to baseball to crime novels, A Jacques Barzun Reader is a feast for any reader. “Barzun has the indispensable skill all great critics possess, which is the ability to step back and say something new. And as this book reminds us, he has been doing that for a long, long time.” - Denver Post “A treat. Barzun…is an irresistible appreciator.” - Boston Globe Throughout his career Jacques Barzun, author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award Finalist From Dawn to Decadence , has always been known as a witty and graceful essayist, one who combines a depth of knowledge and a rare facility with words. Now Michael Murray has carefully selected eighty of Barzun's most inventive, accomplished, and insightful essays, and compiled them in one impressive volume. With subjects ranging from history to baseball to crime novels, A Jacques Barzun Reader is a feast for any reader. Born in France in 1907, Jacques Barzun came to the United States in 1920. After graduating from Columbia College, he joined the faculty of the university, becoming Seth Low Professor of History and, for a decade, Dean of Faculties and Provost. The author of some thirty books, including the New York Times bestseller From Dawn to Decadence, he received the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he was twice president. He lived in San Antonio, Texas, before passing away at age 104. A Jacques Barzun Reader Selections from His Works By Barzun, Jacques Perennial Copyright © 2004 Jacques Barzun All right reserved. ISBN: 0060935421 Chapter One Toward a Fateful Serenity The will is free, but who can account for his own acts and opinions without invoking inuences and accidents? Would I have devoted my life to reading and teaching history, would I feel so keenly the passing of an era -- ve hundred years of high creation going down in confusion; would I, instead of repining, cultivate and recommend a spirited pessimism if I had not had, at a particular time and place, a vivid sight of an earlier world, soon followed by its collapse in wretchedness and folly? Growing up before the First World War in an artistic milieu in Paris and also a conventional one in Grenoble, furnished the mind of the child I remember with two main perceptions. One was that making works of art by exerting genius was the usual occupation of adults; the other was that such a life was hedged about by traditions, manners, and prosperity. Needless to say, neither of these notions was explicit -- or abstract as in the retelling. But faith in their reality encouraged a precocious interest in all subjects, persons, ideas, and words half-understood. The joy of being was the joy of being there: the zest for life was tied to the spectacle of good things being done with condent energy. The outbreak of war in August 1914 and the nightmare that ensued put an end to all innocent joys and assumptions. The word Never took on dreadful force. News of death in every message or greeting, knowledge that cousins, uncles, friends, teachers, and gures known by repute would not be seen again; encounters at home and in the street or schoolyard with the maimed, shell-shocked, or gassed, caused a permanent muting of the spirit. This emotional darkness in daylight was punctuated by the hysterical outbursts of suddenly grief-stricken women and the belief of some in ?communications from the dead? that sounded grimly absurd even to a child. Throughout, poisoning all other sentiments, was the continual outpouring of public hatred. By the age of ten -- as I was later told -- my words andattitudes betrayed suicidal thoughts; it appeared that I was ?ashamed? to be still alive. Steps were taken: before the end of the school term in 1918 I was bundled off to the seashore, away from ?events,? including the bombardment of Paris by Big Bertha and the scurrying to cellars during air raids. With beach life and surrender to a great lassitude, calm slowly returned, helped out by reading adventure stories. But it was not Gulliver and Robinson Crusoe alone who restored the will to live: it was also Hamlet. I had taken him off the shelf in Paris, not in secret but unnoticed, and I brought him away with me. The opening scene promised a good ghost story. As I read on, I discovered that the rotten state of Denmark was the state that had overtaken my world: hatred,suspicion (spies were seen everywhere), murderous fury, unending qui vive. It contradicted all the assurances of the catechism. Bu