Friendship: An Exposé

last updated 8 January 2015

In the annals of literature, friendship has received far less attention than romantic love. But it can be nearly as complicated, says essayist Joseph Epstein. For instance, you acquire friends for odd reasons: You grew up on the same block, or went to the same college, or worked together. You and your friends sometimes have little in common, and, as you age, even less. And though a true friend may be as hard to find as a spouse, a failed friendship'”unlike a failed romance'”rarely arrives at a definitive break. Hallmark, Epstein writes, ought to make a new card: 'œWe've been friends for a very long time,' it would begin. 'œWhat do you say we stop?'

That last thought is 'œvintage Epstein,' said Michael Skube in the Raleigh, N.C., News &anp; Observer. 'œUnderstated, vaguely self-mocking,' it's humor that cuts quickly to an uncomfortable truth. In this 'œdiverting taxonomy of the most ambiguous of human relationships,' the 69-year-old author of Snobbery: The American Version moves easily from anatomizing his own friendships to considering what the great minds of the past said about the subject. (Actually, they haven't said much.) Epstein is generally best in shorter gulps, said Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett in The Seattle Times. But even when he's stretching his material a bit, reading him is like spending an evening being 'œflatteringly entertained by the most interesting guy at the party.'

'œFriendship, like friends, can be annoying,' said William Grimes in The New York Times. Epstein's concept of friendship most likely won't match yours. An enemy of the confessional culture promoted by Oprah and Co., he bristles when friends attempt to open up to him. But that doesn't stop him from opening up about his own friends, telling how he was blown off by Ralph Ellison and fell out with Saul Bellow after a brief period as 'œbest supporting friend.' If there's a lesson in his book, though, it's to take friends as we find them, to enjoy them for who they are, said Dan Cryer in Newsday. We shouldn't try too hard to change a friend, or an essayist, lest we lose the good ones we have. As for the bad ones? Well, there's always Hallmark.