The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: Selected Essays [Paperback]

Bringing together the thoughts of one of American literatures sharpest cultural critics, this compendium will open the eyes of a whole new audience to the work of Lionel Trilling.  Trilling was a strenuous thinker who was proud to think too much.  As an intellectual he did not spare his own kind, and though he did not consider himself a rationalist, he was grounded in the world.

This collection features 32 of Trillings essays on a range of topics, from Jane Austen to George Orwell and from the Kinsey Report toLolita.  Also included are Trillings seminal essays Art and Neurosis and Manners, Morals, and the Novel.  Many of the pieces made their initial appearances in periodicals such asThe Partisan ReviewandCommentary; most were later reprinted in essay collections.  This new gathering of his writings demonstrates again Trillings patient, thorough style.  Considering the problems of lifein art, literature, culture, and intellectual lifewas, to him, a vital occupation, even if he did not expect to get anything as simple or encouraging as answers.  The intellectual journey was the true goal.

No matter the subject, Trillings arguments come together easily, as if constructing complicated defenses and attacks were singularly simple for his well-honed mind.  The more he wrote on a subject and the more intricate his reasoning, the more clear that subject became; his elaboration is all function and no filler.  Wrestling with Trillings challenging work still yields rewards today, his ideas speaking to issues that transcend decades and even centuries.