What a delight to see Barzun's name here. I read From Dawn to Decadence in 2000 when I was young. It was one of the first books of its kind that I read, and it stuck with me all these years because its style was so bizarre to me - unstructured, meandering, erudite, conversational. It connected references of the obscure to the well-known. The wikipedia page notes a review that described his judgments of historical figures as "at best otiose and...[at times] ludicrously banal." And, that makes me laugh. I wish there were more books written that tweaked literary editors. If the 20th century is described as decadent ("Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces"), I describe the 21st century as a climax to platitudinous, bromidic, jejeune.
> What a delight to see Barzun's name here.
OP here, glad to read that. I posted this not expecting much engagement, and I'm very happy to see the article on the front page.
> The wikipedia page notes a review that described his judgments of historical figures as "at best otiose and...[at times] ludicrously banal."
Bravo! Your last sentence perhaps may be called anti-autological: condemning a certain kind of prose by performing the opposite. Brought to mind Pope’s An Essay on Criticism.
Surprisingly, when he arrives at the WWI period in that book Barzun leaves his historian’s voice and talks about being in Paris under bombardment from Big Bertha. Kind of a shock but also very humanizing.
afpx · · focus · HN ↗
Michelangelo11 · · focus · HN ↗
OP here, glad to read that. I posted this not expecting much engagement, and I'm very happy to see the article on the front page.
> The wikipedia page notes a review that described his judgments of historical figures as "at best otiose and...[at times] ludicrously banal."
Wittgenstein's ruler.
Jun8 · · focus · HN ↗
afpx · · focus · HN ↗
mjklin · · focus · HN ↗