The Best American Essays of the Century (The Best American Series)

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Other chords sound repeatedly as well: the problem of our relationship with nature (Annie Dillard, John Muir, and Gretel Ehrlich); the difficulty of identity in disrupted times (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, and Michael Herr). In her essay "The White Album," Didion famously declares: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." The stories Oates has collected are not easy. Here is the hard-won truth, from writers unwilling to forgive even themselves. Even Martin Luther King Jr. doesn't let himself off the hook, as he writes in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail": "If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me." --Claire Dederer

Product Reviews

(5 stars) - of great value
This is a treasure of the Best American Essays of the last hundred years. It's funny that Joyce Carol Oates chooses one of her OWN essays for the book, but it is a good one!

(4 stars) - journalism & literature
Republica, periodismo y literatura/ Republic, Newspaper and Literature: La cuestion politica en el periodismo literario durante la Segunda Republica espanola. Antologia (1931-1936) (Spanish Edition)

(3 stars) - Uneven in Quality
I was only able to obtain an abridged version of this collection on audiotape -- which did not include Baldwin's, Gould's, Hemingway's, Twain's, or Fitzgerald's essays. The particular collection I reviewed included three especially compelling essays: Dubois' essay comparing the return to a southern town of two Johns (one black, one white), which is a brilliant exploration of the Jim Crow system; Muir's essay about his near death experience with his dog Stickeen that is a wonderful treatment of man vs. nature; and Mansfield's recounting of the Battle of Okinawa, which is one of the best anti-war pieces I've ever read.

A number of the other pieces are fair to mediocre. I think what Oates ignores in her collection is the primacy of political writing in the latter half of the 20th century. Some of the finest writing today is not in the Muir tradition, but explores contemporary politics. Some of those political essays from the pages of the Atlantic or New Republic or New York Times or Washington Post should have been included. They are not mere current events writing, but are important historical documents and perhaps reflect where the best and the brightest essayists have put their talents over the last 50 years.

Still, the three essays named above make this collection worthwhile.

(5 stars) - chocolate box of 20th-century thinking
This is a fantastic sampling of American memoir and reflections on race, gender, nature, literature, and other topics of broad interest. It features the century's greatest, starting with Twain, ending with Bellow. The volume is beautifully introduced by Atwan and Oates, both of whom help chip away at the manifold mystery of what makes a good essay. If memoir is of particular interest to you, you will appreciate the poetic sensibilities of the writers. The position essays are equally lucid. I will be teaching a course shortly on developing narrative style and feel fortunate to have stumbled upon this collection. For readers who are looking for varied and pleasant readings, the works in this book will provide that with a challenging edge.

(5 stars) - An Essay for Every Taste
I loved this book because it illustrated to me how much our society has and hasn't changed over the years. The writing was exquisite which was a pleasant respite from today's 24/7 verbal and informational assaults which are produced so quickley and usually without much pondering or maturing of themes and ideas. I see the essay as a slowly dying art form and I am just an average American who loves to read and think and write, I'm definitely not an academic predicting the end of civilization because of the pace of life and thinking brought about by technology.

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