OPINIONS AND PERSPECTIVES

fromThe New York Times Book Review.Edited and with an Introduction by Francis Brown '25. Boston: Houghton MifflinCo., 1964. 441 pp. $6.95.

As one who lovingly clips articles from The New York Times Book Review for rereading and future reference only to lose them before they are properly yellow with age, I welcome Opinions and Perspectives with open eyes. Here, in one handy place, are many of those dear lost clippings - and many too that were obviously printed on those busy weekends when Mr. Brown's portion of the Sunday mammoth was skimmed much too hastily.

The longtime editor of the Book Review section, Francis Brown, has assembled a collection of literary essays that is extraordinary in the wide representation of contemporary writers, extraordinary for variety and depth of perception, and extraordinary for the fact that all 60 were lifted from the pages of the same weekly journal. The listing of contributors reads like a "who's who" of contemporary letters — Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, Joseph Wood Krutch, Jacques Barzun, Karl Shapiro, Lawrence Durrell, Robert Penn Warren and many many more, each with opinions, perspectives and in some cases very interesting axes to grind.

The essays are grouped under seven categories - "Consider the Contemporary," "American Classics," "The Author's Experience," etc. - but they remain individual thrusts, defying grouping. For this reason I must fulfill the traditional duty of one who describes a "collection" in advising the reader to savor these pieces in small groups, chosen at random, over a long period of time.

Those readers particularly interested in Dartmouth men of letters will share this reader's delight in seeing an essay, "What Are Critics Good For?," by Carlos Baker '32 as the first offering. Baker is represented with another essay later in the volume. Francis Steegmuller '27 is also one of the authors, with an essay on the trials and triumphs of the translator.

Editor Brown offers a brief biographical introduction to each essay. However, the editor did not include the date the essay originally appeared in the Book Review, and although this information is certainly unnecessary to the enjoyment of the book, I would have appreciated it.

Literary Editor