Volume 55, Number 17 · November 6, 2008
The Classicist's Eye
By G.W. Bowersock
How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays
by Daniel Mendelsohn
Harper, 456 pp., $26.95
On the cover of Daniel Mendelsohn's new book, the lower part of a broken portrait bust from ancient Egypt confronts the reader with still smoldering intensity. The bust belongs to the Metropolitan Museum and is all that is left of a glamorous queen who reigned in the fourteenth century BC. Her lips, which survive intact, would do credit to the Botox industry. From the lower part of her cheeks and jaw it is clear that her face was carved in precious yellow jasper, but Harper's jacket designer has dramatically wiped out the royal color by bathing the entire object in a cool blue light. At the bottom of this arresting image is the long title of the book, which is taken from the stage directions of Tennessee Williams's play The Glass Menagerie: 'How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.'
Review, 3937 words
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