Perhaps I am only reviewer that would describe his work as sexy, but as someone who has always had a thing for smart guys; Arthur Krystal is the George Clooney of the essay world with his debonair vocabulary, utilization of complex but yet lucid sentence structure, spot-on pacing, and an understanding of the history of the essay.
Krystal seduces his audience with his conversational tone that oozes intellectualism minus the pomposity and elitism. In his enticing and persuasive title work of his diverse twelve essay collection, Krystal advocates for the return of traditional literature essays in a way that appeals to both casual and habitual readers of essays. He dismisses the popular trend of “creative nonfiction” by calling it a fancy word for memoir: ''Writing interestingly about Jane Austen requires more imagination than confessing to having slept with someone named Jane Austen from Beaumont, Texas.''
He further explains his refusal to sell himself for a quick buck in an interview with Harper’s Magazine stating: “Since I feel no inclination to write about my life except when I have to shore up some thesis about Life, I take on subjects that reveal my sensibility without revealing facts of a personal nature.”
Perhaps Krystal doesn’t relieve too many personal specifics, but his sensibilities that that consist of mostly witty cynicism and his charming disenchantment are enough to allure readers along with comments such as: "Optimists, of course, go forth into the world and tweak or chip away until the world, bit by bit, changes. Indeed, the world is buoyed by the enthusiasm and energy of such people. I seem to be talking about “such people” as if they comprised a different species. In a sense, they do. The lazy and the energetic, or the pessimistic and the optimistic, do not carry the same electrical charge."
Anyone who ridicules the optimists of the world wins my affection immediately and my adoration grows for Krystal when I read his further exploration of lethargy in his delightfully self-depreciating essay, “Who Speaks for the Lazy?” In this essay, which originally appeared in the New Yorker, Krystal describes himself as an “incurable lazybones” and discusses his “peripatetic, hand-to-mouth existence” in relation to his readings of Marlowe, Coleridge, and Bryon as well as his metabolism and circadian rhythms. While poking fun at his career choice he writes: ''Let's face it, some boys and girls become writers because the only workplace they're willing to visit is the one inside their heads.'' This laugh-out-loud essay about slothfulness and indolence contains all the personal charm of Sarah Vowell with the intellectualism of Edwin Denby. Only a consummate essayist could make jokes about his ridiculously small income and explain the historical medical condition of melancholia (an excess of black bile) in the same essay.
Indeed, Krystal’s self-mocking goes too far because no one that lazy could have written such an intelligent, wry and eclectic collection, which appeals to general readers and the academy. He offers his readers a diverse group of essays that range on topics from the history of the type-writer to the strange connection between writers and boxers to the life of Raymond Chandlier. Krystal style fluctuates from erudite scholarly writing in “Hello, Beautiful,” where he examines the history of aestheticism to the conversational prose aimed at general readers in his “My Holocaust Problem” that traces the proliferation of the Holocaust industry with a fine balance of journalistic neutrality and personal attachment that stems from his grandparents both dying in the camps.
With a deep-awareness of the hypocritical action of creating a piece of art that complains about the plethora of Holocaust materials, he writes: "While scholarly books and serious documentaries about the Holocaust are invaluable in learning about what happened and why, a certain kind of excess breeds indifference, and even this essay may be in some measure a form of betrayal. There is a part of me that feels that whatever I say for public consumption somehow cheapens the suffering of those who died and those who survived. If I have any justification for writing this, it is that I promised my father I would present his alternative to the pomp and circumstance of remembrance." Krystal handles a gravely sensitive topic with refreshing buoyancy that never borders on offensive like the essay “Possession” by David Sedaris, which for simple shock value has him imaging how he would re-decorate Anne Frank’s kitchen.
Although some (loosely defined) essayists, like Sedaris and Sloane Crosley, use hyperbole and outrageous revelations to capture and keep their audience, Krystal needs no gimmicks other than his charming self-depreciative wit, thought-provoking arguments, and mature intellectualism to attract readers and entice them into reading more of his essays. Krystal’s work both pays homage to the traditional essay in the vein of Montaigne through Lionel Trilling and with great intention continues the tradition of letters. This collection is for both people who regularly read essays and for those don’t; for people who write essays and for those who don’t. However, if you are a person who writes essays, you might find yourself with a little crush on Krystal, or at very least, you’ll experience your electrical charge slowing creeping from pessimistic to cautiously optimistic.
