Bachelorhood: Tales of the Metropolis

by Phillip Lopate

Great book!

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Phillip Lopate is the author of three personal essay collections, two novels, two poetry collections, a memoir of his teaching experiences, and a collection of his movie criticism. He has edited the following anthologies, and his essays, fiction, poetry, film and architectural criticism have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays, The Paris Review, Harper's, Vogue, Esquire, New York Times, Harvard Educational Review, Conde Nast Traveler, and many other periodicals and anthologies. He has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a New York Public Library Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and two New York Foundation for the Arts grants. After working with children for twelve years as a writer in the schools, he taught creative writing and literature at Fordham, Cooper Union, University of Houston, and New York University. He currently holds the John Cranford Adams Chair at Hofstra University, and also teaches in the MFA graduate programs at Columbia, the New School and Bennington.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays and the occasional poem. I liked most of these. My favorite was the one about Lionel Trilling.

[Stephen Kowalkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We hung up. I never called her back. I knew I wouldn’t, even while I was making the offer, and I think Osao understood it too. But I felt like a heel. Obliging on the surface, I was underneath just like her artist father, disapproving and aloof. Maybe that was what she wanted from me; maybe I hadn’t disappointed her after all.

You see how tempted I am to thrash around in my own guilt and promote some sense of shame in lieu of a larger meaning. The truth of the matter is, Osao and I could never have worked out. There are those newly struck acquaintances that, for all the goodwill of both parties, peter out after a month. And there are those “bonsai loves” that, like the bonsai tree, perfect in its own limited way, are doomed to grow no higher than one’s knee.”

[Drew Daves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timely read. Found my copy for $4.99 at Powell’s and figured that I owed Lopate a memoir after “The Art of the Personal Essay.” There’s about 120 pages of master-level essaying and about 80 pages that I could have done without. But oh man, the highs are highs in this one. Gorgeous work, I’m a sucker for schoolboy stories, of course. Lopate’s portrait of his father is what stands out most to me a week after finishing the collection.

[Connor Bedell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m always a sucker for a collection of essays and short stories, and I thought the through line of the book was distinctly strong and thought provoking

[Tuckova · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not so much about Phillip Lopate, but in general: what is up with writers being reminded of Cornell's boxes? I get that they're great, but this is the third book I've read this year that references them.
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Finally finished it. Some of it was very good, some of it was... not. I think blogs have changed the way I think about essays; it's still one of my favorite forms, but it takes a lot more to impress me now. And Lopate is good, but he's not E.B. White.

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Чудесно, что открытия (в моем случае — на собственной книжной полке) еще случаются: это превосходный сборник — взрослый, мудрый, уравновешенный, ироничный голос, эдакий Хэнк, но традиционнее, хотя такой же прямой и безжалостно честный с собой. Как литература это очень плотно, наверное, это и называют «мужской» прозой.

Семейный статус, кстати, тут не при чем. Это так, чтобы рецензентам было за что зацепиться.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first collection of Lopate's I've ever read and I enjoyed it. I was most interested in how he structured the essays thematically and expanded the concept of bachelorhood. His prose is simple yet the essays still make deeper inquiries into experiences of solitude, romance, and identity in the specific culture of American society.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I thought but still good (I was warned). Lots of short stories/poems of Lopate's observations of life -- sort of through the eyes of being a bachelor. A few not. Still good metro reading.

[JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of his thoughts expressed through essays regarding perspective and experiences as a bachelor-observor of life; not overly profound but slightly amusing in certain areas.