Charles Nicol on Alfred Kazin

SURVEY, NOT HISTORY

Attempting an all-inclusive look at important American fiction from the Thirties to the present, Alfred Kazin necessarily leaves out as much as he puts in, and his chapters seem dubious attempts to organize his sure opinions about certain authors into larger views about literary trends. The study should have been restricted to those authors on whom Kazin could expand indefinitely in his aphoristic, mildly rhetorical but extremely attractive style. Where he is best he is eternally quotable, sewing up the heart of his author with stitch after perfect stitch.

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Charles Nicol

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SURVEY, NOT HISTORY

Attempting an all-inclusive look at important American fiction from the Thirties to the present, Alfred Kazin necessarily leaves out as much as he puts in, and his chapters seem dubious attempts to organize his sure opinions about certain authors into larger views about literary trends. The study should have been restricted to those authors on whom Kazin could expand indefinitely in his aphoristic, mildly rhetorical but extremely attractive style. Where he is best he is eternally quotable, sewing up the heart of his author with stitch after perfect stitch.