The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019-2022

by Peter Schjeldahl, Steve Martin, Jarrett Earnest Narrated by T. Ryder Smith

Overview

When Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker's art critic and the leading art writer of his generation, published his eye-opening autobiographical essay, “The Art of Dying,” in December 2019, he reported that he had lung cancer and had been given six months of life. Fortunately, his treatment was showing some improvement, and so, he wrote, “These extra months are a luxury that I hope to have put to good use.”

And he did. The Art of Dying begins with that essay and collects all forty-six pieces that he subsequently published in the magazine before his death in October 2022.

These last works explore the meanings and purposes of art, not only in relation to the writer's own condition, but also under the stress of an intensely anxious period spanning the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, the 2020 presidential election, and the war in Ukraine. Reviewing exhibitions and, occasionally, books, Schjeldahl probed the art world's answers to the questions-esthetic, moral, political-posed by these tempestuous three years, in writing inflected with generosity and openness.

Comedian and author Steve Martin contributes a foreword, and writer and curator Jarrett Earnest contributes an introduction.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 04/08/2024

New Yorker art critic Schjeldahl, who died in October 2022, puts his “almost freakish gift for the English language” (in the words of critic Jarrett Earnest) on full display in this brilliant essay collection. In 2019, the author announced his lung cancer diagnosis in the title essay, which is less a rumination on mortality (“I find myself thinking about death less than I used to”) than a clear-eyed consideration of the art of criticism. Covering such subjects as Edward Hopper, the Storm King Art Center in New York State, and painter Faith Ringgold, Schjeldahl’s essays showcase his pithy eloquence (“Nearly every house that he painted strikes me as a self-portrait, with brooding windows and almost never a visible... inviting door,” he writes of the sense of solitude in Edward Hopper’s paintings); plainspoken enthusiasm (“I loved it!” he exclaims about a 2020 exhibit of French figure drawings at the Clark Art Institute); and willingness to rethink previous judgments and see anew, as he did about the merits of Pop Art painter Peter Saul. Above all, the collection is a testament to Schjeldahl’s unique ability to make tangible art’s emotional effects on the viewer, as in his description of how Peter Saul’s “pictures mount furious assaults on the eye, leaving you with indescribable.... choreographies of one damned thing after another.” This posthumous collection will be a gift to Schjeldahl’s admirers and a revelation to those new to his work. (May)

From the Publisher

Brilliant … a testament to Schjeldahl’s unique ability to make tangible art’s emotional effects on the viewer … This posthumous collection will be a gift to Schjeldahl’s admirers and a revelation to those new to his work.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A gorgeous memento mori from a singular writer.”—Kirkus (starred review)

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2024-03-20
Notes on dying from a man who did an excellent job of living.

Schjeldahl (1942-2022) was best known as an art critic, a role he held at the New Yorker right up until his death at the age of 80. He made the East Village his home for most of his life, but his roots were in the Midwest—a fact that perhaps explains why he was able to make art accessible without dumbing it down or pandering. The title essay was published after he was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer. The author writes about his life in a discursive style that he has, as an elderly man facing death, surely earned, but these vignettes hang together and offer a portrait of a life spent in search of beauty in an era largely defined by cynicism. Always a keen observer, Schjeldahl manages the neat trick of seeming to place himself outside the frame even when he serves as his own subject. For example, he recounts winning a Guggenheim grant to pen a memoir that never happened because he used that money to buy a tractor—rather than time to write. Relating this story, he quotes Susan Sontag, whom he recounts meeting in another anecdote that seems more self-effacing than it is. This author knows his place in cultural history, and he wants us to remember it; he just doesn’t want to brag about it. The rest of this volume includes Schjeldahl’s final pieces for the New Yorker, many written during the global pandemic, a time when the author was uniquely equipped to talk about how we might think about art in the face of death. In the foreword, Steve Martin notes, “It’s easy to think you can write like Peter, intrepidly flinging words around, but it’s dangerous.”

A gorgeous memento mori from a singular writer.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191414065
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	05/14/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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