The carefully crafted, meditative essays in On the Shoreline of Knowledge sometimes start from unlikely objects or thoughts, a pencil or some fragments of commonplace conversation, but they soon lead the reader to consider fundamental themes in human experience. The unexpected circumnavigation of the ordinary unerringly gets to the heart of the matter.
Bringing a diverse range of material into play, from fifteenth-century Japanese Zen Buddhism to how we look at paintings, and from the nature of a briefcase to the ancient nest-sites of gyrfalcons, Chris Arthur reveals the extraordinary dimensions woven invisibly into the ordinary things around us. Compared to Loren Eiseley, George Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Aldo Leopold, V. S. Naipaul, W. G. Sebald, W. B. Yeats, and other literary luminaries, he is a master essayist whose work has quietly been gathering an impressive cargo of critical acclaim. Arthur speaks with an Irish accent, rooting the book in his own unique vision of the world, but he addresses elemental issues of life and death, love and loss, that circle the world and entwine us all.
鈥淐hris Arthur is among the very best essayists in the English language today. He is ever mindful of the genre鈥檚 long literary tradition and understands鈥攁s did his great predecessors鈥攖hat the genuine essay is grounded in the imagination, in our quest for art and beauty, as deeply as is poetry or painting. Every young writer who wants to experience the creative possibilities of the essay form must read Chris Arthur鈥攊t isn鈥檛 an option.鈥濃擱obert Atwan, series editor, The Best American Essays
鈥淎 remarkable demonstration of the kind of talented free association that characterizes the personal essay at its most imaginative."鈥擵ivian Gornick, author, The Men in My Life
鈥淐hris Arthur writes the kind of essays you rarely see anymore, the deeply meditative kind that shine with associative light, that humbly approach the vast complexity of the world in hopes of making some small bit of sense. He valiantly carries on the long, glorious tradition of making art out of thinking with On the Shoreline of Knowledge, a truly lovely book and a pure joy to read.鈥濃擯atrick Madden, author, Quotidiana
from "Chestnuts"
It鈥檚 hard to explain the exact reasons behind the appeal chestnuts exert, but such explanation isn鈥檛 really necessary. Even if it鈥檚 interesting to speculate about why, their appeal works on a level that makes understanding automatic, if in the end opaque. This is something instinctual, of the blood. It issues in an immediate sense of empathy, so we can feel in ourselves the gravity of their attraction even if we can鈥檛 spell out the fine detail of its operation. I don鈥檛 wonder in the least at my daughter鈥攐r anyone鈥攚anting to collect them. I only have to look at my own reaction to know why this is. But I鈥檓 at a loss to explain鈥攁nd in the absence of any instinctual empathy, I feel the need for reasons鈥攚hy this same daughter took such a shine to a tweed coat of my mother鈥檚. She was drawn to it, wanted it, in the way we鈥檙e drawn to chestnuts.
