Personal Criticism

A Gathering of Fugitives, by Lionel Trilling. 167 pp. Boston: Beacon Press. $1.45

In the best literary magazines — whether England’s Encounter, France’s Table Ronde, any of America’s quarterlies, or the New Yorker —the back, or “book-review,” section continues to be the liveliest. The stories, the verse, the serialized fiction, which are presumably a magazine’s raison d’être, are almost invariably tame, dutiful, unoriginal and very dull. But now and then, a “book review” will show zest, invention, real risk, and the quality of arrogance which means the writer has tapped the authority of his own experience.

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Roger Becket

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A Gathering of Fugitives, by Lionel Trilling. 167 pp. Boston: Beacon Press. $1.45

In the best literary magazines — whether England’s Encounter, France’s Table Ronde, any of America’s quarterlies, or the New Yorker —the back, or “book-review,” section continues to be the liveliest. The stories, the verse, the serialized fiction, which are presumably a magazine’s raison d’être, are almost invariably tame, dutiful, unoriginal and very dull. But now and then, a “book review” will show zest, invention, real risk, and the quality of arrogance which means the writer has tapped the authority of his own experience.