The end of solitude Selected essays on culture and society

Essayist Deresiewicz (The Death of the Artist) eviscerates "groupthink" in this razor-sharp collection made up mostly of previously published pieces. Identifying the book's unifying theme as an "attempt to defend, and, as well as I can, to enact, a certain conception of the self... developed in solitude, in fearless dialogue, by reading, through education as the nurturing of souls; embodied in original art and independent thought," Deresiewicz is at his most trenchant when analyzing the technological and cultural forces arrayed against his preferred mode of being. He compares the links between TV and boredom--"television, by eliminating the need to learn to make use of one's lack of occupation, prevents one from discovering how to enjoy it"--to the relationship between the internet and loneliness, alleging that social media and text messaging have helped to rob people of "the propensity for introspection" and "the capacity for solitude." Elsewhere, Deresiewicz contends that the "culture of political correctness" at elite private colleges provides affluent students and faculty "with the ideological resources to alibi or erase their privilege." Despite a tendency to generalize and the occasional slip into ungracious embitterment, as when he writes that having a "white penis" put two strikes against him on the academic job market, Deresiewicz anatomizes modern life with skill and fierce conviction. Readers will relish grappling with these erudite provocations. (Aug.)

Sharp commentaries on the arts and academia and the forces the author believes threaten them. This selection of essays by veteran critic Deresiewicz, which followsThe Death of the Artist, reveals an open-mindedness when it comes to subject matter. The author writes enthusiastically about fiction, dance, TV, and more. He admires heterodox intellectuals like Harold Rosenberg and polymaths like Clive James. But he also writes with a conservative cantankerousness about what he sees as higher education's descent into groupthink and younger generations' rush to embrace it. In multiple essays, he decries colleges' dismantling of the humanities in favor of STEM departments more obviously capable of minting interchangeable employees, and he calls out the dogmatic thinking that consumes elite institutions. He gripes about political correctness, partly in exasperation with its knee-jerk tendencies ("If you are a white man, you are routinely regarded as guilty until proven innocent"), but he's also upset at its broader cynicism, the way it's a "fig leaf for the competitive individualism of meritocratic neoliberalism, with its worship of success above all." When Deresiewicz, the winner of a National Book Critics Circle award for excellence in reviewing, has a juicy target, it can be surprisingly good fun: His assault on Harold Bloom's late-era woolliness is a classic takedown, and his jeremiad about the folly of elevating food to an art form is debatable in the right way: a provocation with enough facts behind it to be worth discussing. A stronger sense of humor might help some of his assertions go down easier, and he's capable of it, as in a wry piece about Bernard Malamud, a fellow fish-out-of-water Jew in Oregon. Deresiewicz's soberness speaks to the intensity of his concern: The humanities are under threat by legislators, technology, and its own practitioners, and he's a passionate advocate for their dignity. Sometimes cranky but consistently engaging takes on cultural corrosion and collapse. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.