Lives of the Mind is a work of generous humanity.
Kimball’s…essays make for bracing and satisfying reading.
Review of Metaphysics - Virgil Nemoianu
Kimball does a very good job of integrating the lives of his subjects with the development of their ideas.
Kimball does a very good job of integrating the lives of his subjects with the development of their ideas.
Kimball’s…essays make for bracing and satisfying reading.
We rely on the true critic to cultivate our intelligence, refine our tastes, and show us the way to higher pleasures. Roger Kimball is just such a critic.
Lives of the Mind is a work of generous humanity.
...Rich and accessible essays....Kimball writes with verve...
Mr. Kimball writes with insight and verve on a remarkable wide range of artistic, literary, and philosophical matters.
[Kimball] writes with verve and can unpack complex arguments and make them luminously clear....His work...is criticism at its best.
Anyone interested in language, thought, and their sociocultural embeddness will find this a both dynamic and practical book.
Virginia Quarterly Review
...An engaging and well-written study....Excellent.
Reformation and Revival Journal
Kimball's discussion of philosophers is astonishingly well informed.
A sharp-tongued yet learned essayist.
One of the best kinds of writing about writing...is the cultural review article….Kimball is a master of the genre.
Kimball, a respected critic and managing editor of the New Criterion, applies the pornography standard to intelligence in this collection of essays about famous men and their smarts: it's hard to define, but he knows it when he sees it. "[I]ntelligence," Kimball writes, "like fire, is a power that is neither good nor bad in itself but rather takes its virtue, its moral coloring, from its application." Among the figures the author identifies as having constructively applied their intelligence are Plutarch (who taught us about character), Kierkegaard ("the supreme anatomist of the aesthetic mode of life"), Wittgenstein (for whom philosophy was an "existential imperative") and, of course, Descartes. (Apparently, real intelligence requires a Y chromosome). Kimball notes that in these studies the heroes "rather outweigh the villains," but a little more abuse might have helped liven things up. The personal bits-Kimball's sickbed discovery of Wodehouse, or Trollope's account of his schoolyard woes-stand out brightly in essays that are earnest and rigorous, if occasionally a bit dry. (Oct. 25) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
Rich and accessible essays.... Kimball writes with verve...
We rely on the true critic to cultivate our intelligence, refine our tastes, and show us the way to higher pleasures. Roger Kimball is just such a critic.
The Wall Street Journal - Mark Miller
Kimball does a very good job of integrating the lives of his subjects with the development of their ideas.
We rely on the true critic to cultivate our intelligence, refine our tastes, and show us the way to higher pleasures. Roger Kimball is just such a critic.
