{"product_id":"ecstasy-and-terror-isbn-9781681374055","title":"Ecstasy and Terror","description":"“The role of the critic,” Daniel Mendelsohn writes, “is to mediate intelligently and stylishly between a work and its audience; to educate and edify in an engaging and, preferably, entertaining way.” His latest collection exemplifies the range, depth, and erudition that have made him “required reading for anyone interested in dissecting culture” (\u003ci\u003eThe Daily Beast\u003c\/i\u003e). In \u003ci\u003eEcstasy and Terror\u003c\/i\u003e, Mendelsohn once again casts an eye at literature, film, television, and the personal essay, filtering his insights through his training as a scholar of classical antiquity in illuminating and sometimes surprising ways.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany of these essays look with fresh eyes at our culture’s Greek and Roman models: some find an arresting modernity in canonical works (\u003ci\u003eBacchae\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eAeneid\u003c\/i\u003e), while others detect a “Greek DNA” in our responses to national traumas such as the Boston Marathon bombings and the assassination of JFK. There are pieces on contemporary literature, from the “aesthetics of victimhood” in Hanya Yanagihara’s \u003ci\u003eA Little Life \u003c\/i\u003eto the uncomfortable mixture of art and autobiography in novels by Henry Roth, Ingmar Bergman, and Karl Ove Knausgård. Mendelsohn considers pop culture, too, in essays on the feminism of \u003ci\u003eGame of Thrones \u003c\/i\u003eand on recent films about artificial intelligence—a subject, he reminds us, that was already of interest to Homer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis collection also brings together for the first time a number of the award-winning memoirist’s personal essays, including his “critic’s manifesto” and a touching reminiscence of his boyhood correspondence with the historical novelist Mary Renault, who inspired him to study the Classics.\"One of the great critics of our time . . . revelatory.\" —Craig Taylor, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Mendelsohn, a classicist by training, may be criticism’s answer to Michael Jordan; highbrow, lowbrow, antiquity, modernity, Sappho, 'Suits'—he can do all the moves, as these essays, sparkling with insight and erudition, show.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The pieces in \u003ci\u003eEcstasy and Terror\u003c\/i\u003e . . . range magnificently in topic to include Evelyn Waugh’s \u003ci\u003eBrideshead Revisited\u003c\/i\u003e, the poetry of Sappho and Cavafy, the assassination of JFK, the Boston bombings, and Hanya [Yanagihara]'s \u003ci\u003eA Little Life\u003c\/i\u003e. [Daniel Mendelsohn’s] work is a much-needed reminder that it is possible to be fair, thoughtful, and accurate while nevertheless offering a definitively positive or negative critique. It is a pleasure to think with him.” —\u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\"A must-read in this age where expertise is so often airily dismissed . . . Lots of critics routinely make light references to Greek myth and literature, but in Mendelsohn's writing such connections \u003ci\u003emean\u003c\/i\u003e something, they illuminate more . . . To read a signature Mendelsohn essay is to be educated and entertained, and, always, freshly aware of how much more there is to read and know.\" —Maureen Corrigan, \u003ci\u003eNPR\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\"[A] master class in criticism, a rangy, perspicacious, occasionally spiky excursion into cultures both ancient and contemporary. His breadth of reference is characteristically formidable—'From the Greeks to Game of Thrones' (the book’s subtitle), 'from Corneille to \"The Crown\"'—and put to good use. He knows that a well-chosen example, especially one that collapses traditional distinctions between high and popular culture, can be erudite, authoritative, even cool, all at once…To read Mendelsohn is to gain a synoptic view of a subject, whether it’s the novels of Ingmar Bergman, 'the Sappho wars' or the unexpected relationship between robots and Homer.\" —Charles Arrowsmith, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Daniel Mendelsohn is not only an incisive critic and elegant prose stylist but also a brilliant translator. . . . Even in his criticism, Mendelsohn brings a translator’s sensibility to the texts, films and plays he approaches.\" —Donna Zuckerberg, \u003ci\u003eThe Times Literary Supplement\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Mendelsohn's points are always passionately argued. He strikes the perfect balance between learned and playful . . . One fascinating essay after another from one of America's best critics.” —\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mendelsohn takes the classical costumes off figures like Virgil and Sappho and gives them a vivid urgency for the present moment . . . He writes about things so clearly they come to feel like some of the most important things you have ever been told.\" —Sebastian Barry\u003cb\u003eDaniel Mendelsohn\u003c\/b\u003e teaches at Bard and is Editor-at-Large at\u003ci\u003e The New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e. His books include \u003ci\u003eAn Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic\u003c\/i\u003e (2017); \u003ci\u003eThe Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million\u003c\/i\u003e (2006); \u003ci\u003eHow Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essay\u003c\/i\u003es (2008), and, from New York Review Books, \u003ci\u003eWaiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture\u003c\/i\u003e (2012).","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303092343013,"sku":"NP9781681374055","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681374055.jpg?v=1767725858","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/ecstasy-and-terror-isbn-9781681374055","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}