Read Recently: “Snobbery: The American Version” by Joseph Epstein
Title: Snobbery: The American Version
Author: Joseph Epstein
Origins: Heard Epstein on KQED's "Forum". Grabbed the book of his that seemed most interesting.
Synopsis: A series of interlocked essays, each one a scalpel probing the corpus of American Snobbery. Incisions include chapters on WASP privilege, Ivy League universities, class v. wealth and why Jews and gays occupy most of the jobs in the arts.
Verdict: Witty, erudite, effortlessly constructed and studded with 5-dollar words I don't know but would like to learn. Epstein is the new half-brother to my favorite family of writers, sitting at Thankgiving between Anne Fadiman and Joan Didion, across the table from Bill Bryson and Phillip Lopate.
These are my heroes, men and women who take often pedestrian subjects and light them with bottle rockets from the inside. I hope to have a literary legacy like theirs someday. And as I practice, I read books like these to imagine what I could aim for in the meantime.
Will grab another Epstein right soon. I'm thinking In a Cardboard Belt.