Shared Experience

A Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World, by Morris Dickstein (Princeton, 320 pp., $26.95)

GOOD news is at hand, and Morris Dickstein’s new book is an example of it. He actually enjoys talking with us about literature, here mainly the novel. That sort of thing is what the word “criticism” once meant, the critic distinguished from the ordinary reader mainly by skill in analysis backed up by a knowledge of biography, history, and perhaps such ancillary disciplines as sociology. All of this illuminated the work of literature. Such a critic spoke to and with the readers about books they shared or might share.

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Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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A Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World, by Morris Dickstein (Princeton, 320 pp., $26.95)

GOOD news is at hand, and Morris Dickstein’s new book is an example of it. He actually enjoys talking with us about literature, here mainly the novel. That sort of thing is what the word “criticism” once meant, the critic distinguished from the ordinary reader mainly by skill in analysis backed up by a knowledge of biography, history, and perhaps such ancillary disciplines as sociology. All of this illuminated the work of literature. Such a critic spoke to and with the readers about books they shared or might share.