Alfred Kazin's Journals - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 030014203X ISBN 13: 9780300142037

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2011

Synopsis

At the time of his death in 1998, Alfred Kazin was considered one of the most influential intellectuals of postwar America. What is less well known is that Kazin had been contributing almost daily to an extensive private journal, which arguably contains some of his best writing. These journals collectively tell the story of his journey from Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood to his position as a dominant figure in twentieth-century cultural life.

To Kazin, the daily entry was a psychological and spiritual act. To read through these entries is to reexperience history as a series of daily discoveries by an alert, adventurous, if often mercurial intelligence. It is also to encounter an array of interesting and notable personalities. Sketches of friends, mistresses, family figures, and other intellectuals are woven in with commentary on Kazin's childhood, early religious interests, problems with parents, bouts of loneliness, dealings with publishers, and thoughts on the Holocaust. The journals also highlight his engagement with the political and cultural debates of the decades through which he lived. He wrestles with communism, cultural nationalism, liberalism, existentialism, Israel, modernism, and much more.

Judiciously selected and edited by acclaimed Kazin biographer Richard Cook, this collection provides the public with access to these previously unavailable writings and, in doing so, offers a fascinating social, historical, literary, and cultural record.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard M. Cook is chair of the English department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Review:

"This is a remarkable book, easily one of the great diaries and moral documents of the past American century."—Dwight Garner, New York Times (Dwight Garner New York Times 2011-05-26)

“A profound and exciting book, more so even than the best of the dozen works of criticism and autobiography that [Kazin] published during his lifetime.”—Edward Mendelson, New York Review of Books (Edward Mendelson New York Review of Books)

“[Kazin’s] deepest work . . . The journals' overwhelming note is passion. Kazin wrote with his whole being, from a ferocious intensity of hunger and joy.”—William Deresiewicz, Slate (William Deresiewicz Slate)

"Kazin’s [journals], just now published by Yale University Press, may well turn out to be his greatest work."—Mark Shechner, Tablet Magazine (Mark Shechner Tablet Magazine)

“With the publication of Alfred Kazin’s Journals, this Brooklyn-born son of Jewish immigrants is poised to join the literary giants who inspired him. . . . Kazin comes vibrantly alive in the journals.”—Chris Waddington, New Orleans Times-Picayune (Chris Waddington New Orleans Times-Picayune)

“A monumental offering from one of the greatest and most challenging—and often underrated—literary minds of the 20th century . . . As essential as it is, perhaps, overdue.”—Jeff Simon, Buffalo News (Jeff Simon Buffalo News)

“[This] richly, intimately detailed and meticulously kept journal, full of searing insights, punishingly honest confessions, acerbic assessments of others, and golden nuggets of timeless wisdom . . . serve[s] us as Kazin’s autobiography even better than do his three volumes of memoir.”—Gerald Sorin, Haaretz (Gerald Sorin Haaretz)

“Richly unmediated expressiveness . . . a remarkable demonstration of how good writing struggles to emerge from the inner chaos with which we all live and that only a writer as talented as Alfred Kazin can bring to its knees.”—Vivian Gornick, Boston Review (Vivian Gornick Boston Globe)

“Valuable glimpses into the man behind the intellectual warrior.”—Martin Rubin, Washington Times (Martin Rubin Washington Times)

"Alfred Kazin's Journals is a profound and exciting book, more so even than the best of the dozen works of criticism and autobiography that he published during his lifetime. . . . Some of Kazin's journals reveal only their author's private darkness, but far more of them open onto vistas of literature and history illuminated by his intelligent excitement."—Edward Mendelson, The New York Review of Books (Edward Mendelson The New York Review of Books)

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 030014203X
• ISBN 13: 9780300142037
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 632
• Editor: Cook Richard M.