Elbow Room for the Eye

Occasions and Protests, by John Dos Passos. Regnery, $4.95 The first reading of these essays and reflections—written between 1936 and 1964—was, for this reviewer, not easy. For one thing, when a writer of fiction turns to the essay, he often stays a good jump ahead of the professional pedant. For another thing, the first pieces are a bit early for someone whose father was too young for the Lost Generation. But then a vagrant memory capriciously juxtaposed certain passages, to produce a surprising effect:

Taste and hearing have their importance but sight is the basic sense.

DS

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D. J. Stewart

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Occasions and Protests, by John Dos Passos. Regnery, $4.95 The first reading of these essays and reflections—written between 1936 and 1964—was, for this reviewer, not easy. For one thing, when a writer of fiction turns to the essay, he often stays a good jump ahead of the professional pedant. For another thing, the first pieces are a bit early for someone whose father was too young for the Lost Generation. But then a vagrant memory capriciously juxtaposed certain passages, to produce a surprising effect:

Taste and hearing have their importance but sight is the basic sense.