Un-Damned Fool

Red, Black, Blond and Olive: Studies in Four Civilizations: Zuni, Haiti, Soviet Russia, Israel, by Edmund Wilson. 500 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $6.75

Edmund Wilson has the ideal temperament for writing a travel dairy. He has zest. He has a frank, unfrit-tering, manly aplomb which is never too shy to ask questions, open doors, probe, sniff, peek under, and get at what he has come to see. Though his personal tastes are strong, they are never so original or subjective that they pre-empt interest in whatever they are reacting to. Best of all, he is a man for whom literature is not an eccentric, onanistic specialty, but a daily part of the living creature. He is probably the closest thing we have to Dr. Johnson, and I am grateful for him, even when I find him making as unabashed an ass of himself as he does sometimes in his new book.

RP

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Robert Phelps

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Red, Black, Blond and Olive: Studies in Four Civilizations: Zuni, Haiti, Soviet Russia, Israel, by Edmund Wilson. 500 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $6.75

Edmund Wilson has the ideal temperament for writing a travel dairy. He has zest. He has a frank, unfrit-tering, manly aplomb which is never too shy to ask questions, open doors, probe, sniff, peek under, and get at what he has come to see. Though his personal tastes are strong, they are never so original or subjective that they pre-empt interest in whatever they are reacting to. Best of all, he is a man for whom literature is not an eccentric, onanistic specialty, but a daily part of the living creature. He is probably the closest thing we have to Dr. Johnson, and I am grateful for him, even when I find him making as unabashed an ass of himself as he does sometimes in his new book.