Motion from the Floor

The Thaw, by Ilya Ehrenburg. With a special supplement on “The Death of Art,” by Russell Kirk. 230 pp. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. $3.50

The Thaw may be called a novel only in the sense in which a prefabricated dwelling may be called a home. And as a novel, I cannot imagine anyone’s caring to pick it up, since it is everything Mr. Kirk’s essay calls it: mousy, superficial, timorous, boring.