The Best American Essays of the Century
by Joyce Carol Oates (Editor), Robert Atwan (Editor & Foreword)
The Best American Essays (Collections and Selections — 20th Century), Best American (20th Century)
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Fifty five unforgettable essays by the finest American writers of the twentieth century.Tags
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There's a lot of great reading here. The carefully curated collection of essays starts strong with Twain's observation of natural American clanishness using the metaphor of "corne-pone opinions". This is almost the best of the best. For me the best here is muir's celebration of Stickeen the explorer dog. I can picture the plucky animal conquering his own fears at the glacier bridge and the twinkling in his eyes as he recollects the close call with Muir. Also very good is pioneer community organizer jane Addams seeing in women their personal struggles in their desires to see it purported "devil baby". For the Hemingway piece about the running of the bulls i am further confirmed that at this point in my life I am unimpressed with his show more fiction but find his nonfiction enjoyable enough. Mencken's gonzo reporting of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" reads like Hunter S. himself. I also am starting to see emerge from the dark night of my ignorance the constellation of brights in American literature: Sontag (brilliant disection of "camp" that I now know predates Friday the 13th), independent polymath Edmund Wilson, James Agee, etc. Didion discursive assaying and of the turbulent 60s is in the Montaigne tradition and Bellow's "Graven Images" is an insightful musing on photography that could extend from 1997 to today's struggles with 24hour news camers body cameras, etc.
These are chronologically arranged but I think topical could have been better: death (two on suicide), the arts, society. Even our long struggles with racism: Wright, Angelou, Hurston and even Alice Walker's poignant search for Hurston's grave. show less
These are chronologically arranged but I think topical could have been better: death (two on suicide), the arts, society. Even our long struggles with racism: Wright, Angelou, Hurston and even Alice Walker's poignant search for Hurston's grave. show less
What makes this collection the best of essays is that Oates takes care to identify those essays that speak to the historical, political, and personal experience of America in the 20th century. In this collection you'll find Eliot, Hurston, Fitzgerald, McCarthy, Baldwin, King, Kingston, Didion, Nabokov, Updike, Bellow, Rich and more. She shys away from nothing. I could find nothing missing. There are books that we buy and gobble up and there are those that we savour. You'll do both with this collection. I always have it close at hand. When I need to be reminded of how an essay reads in a masters voice, I pick up Oates' collection.
What I read was certainly good. I dunno about "best of the century" though, really...
Essays read:
Tom Wolfe-Putting Daddy On
John McPhee-The Search for Marvin Gardens--A reporter tries to find the real streets named in the Monopoly Game
Joan Didion-The White Album--Didion's experience as a reporter in the late 1960's covering various stories for magazines. Reveals some of her process.
Gertrude Stein-What are Master-Pieces---difficult to read because it was a spoken word presentation and she repeats the same words and phrases a lot.
F. Scott Fitzgerald-The Crack-Up. Fitzgerald speaks about a mental breakdown or mid-life crisis he had when he reached his 40's. There are 3 sections. The first part is basically the facts. The second part is about related experiences he had and third section is his attempt to move on and accept show more it.
Annie Dillard-Total Eclipse-Detailed essay about experiencing a total eclipse and the aftermath.
Langston Hughes-Bop-Hughes talks about where jazz BeBop came from. show less
Tom Wolfe-Putting Daddy On
John McPhee-The Search for Marvin Gardens--A reporter tries to find the real streets named in the Monopoly Game
Joan Didion-The White Album--Didion's experience as a reporter in the late 1960's covering various stories for magazines. Reveals some of her process.
Gertrude Stein-What are Master-Pieces---difficult to read because it was a spoken word presentation and she repeats the same words and phrases a lot.
F. Scott Fitzgerald-The Crack-Up. Fitzgerald speaks about a mental breakdown or mid-life crisis he had when he reached his 40's. There are 3 sections. The first part is basically the facts. The second part is about related experiences he had and third section is his attempt to move on and accept show more it.
Annie Dillard-Total Eclipse-Detailed essay about experiencing a total eclipse and the aftermath.
Langston Hughes-Bop-Hughes talks about where jazz BeBop came from. show less
Also not read in its entirety, but ongoing inspiration.
Best American Essays of the Century wraps up the creme de la creme of essay writing from 1901 - 1997. Beginning with Mark Twain ("Corn-pone Opinions") and ending with Saul Bellow ("Graven Images.")
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Author Information
Joyce Carol Oates was born on June 16, 1938 in Lockport, New York. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University and a master's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of numerous novels and collections of short stories. Her works include We Were the Mulvaneys, Blonde, Bellefleur, You Must show more Remember This, Because It Is Bitter, Because It Is My Heart, Solstice, Marya : A Life, and Give Me Your Heart. She has received numerous awards including the National Book Award for Them, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. She was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her title Lovely, Dark, Deep. She also wrote a series of suspense novels under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith. In 2015, her novel The Accursed became listed as a bestseller on the iBooks chart. She worked as a professor of English at the University of Windsor, before becoming the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. She and her late husband Raymond J. Smith operated a small press and published a literary magazine, The Ontario Review. (Bowker Author Biography) Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most eminent and prolific literary figures and social critics of our times. She has won the National Book Award and several O. Henry and Pushcart prizes. Among her other awards are an NEA grant, a Guggenheim fellowship, the PEN/Malamud Lifetime Achievement Award, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature. (Publisher Provided) show less
Robert Atwan is the series editor of The Best American Essays. He recently edited Divine Inspiration, a volume of world poetry on the Gospels. (Publisher Provided)
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- Canonical title
- The Best American Essays of the Century
- Original title
- The Best American Essays of the Century
- Original publication date
- 2000
- People/Characters
- Bert Lahr
- First words
- Fifty years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose society was very dear to me because I was forbidden by my mother to partake of it.
Here is a history of America told in many voices.
--Introduction, "The Art of the (American) Essay" - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But for a one-nose job, the bust in the Chicago library isn't at all bad.
- Original language
- English US
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- English
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- 6
- UPCs
- 3
- ASINs
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