Reviewed in Brief

A Literary Chronicle: 1920-1950, by Edmund Wilson. 442 pp. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. $1.25

After thirty-five years of journalism, Edmund Wilson is still the most honest and intelligent reader in the United States who regularly commits his gusto, perverseness, and—sometimes—boners to print. His relish and frequently bearish temper have even survived the suavely smug columns of the New Yorker. In this sampler of some four dozen of his pieces, he ranges from discussions of Finnegans Wake to John O’Hara to detective stories to Jane Austen. Throughout, his appetite remains hearty, masculine, shrewd, self-cultivated. Plainly he loves books very much, and spends most of his time with them, but as anyone will find who sniffs his pages, there is never the least smell of the lamp in the air when he writes about them.

RP

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Robert Phelps

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A Literary Chronicle: 1920-1950, by Edmund Wilson. 442 pp. New York: Doubleday Anchor Books. $1.25

After thirty-five years of journalism, Edmund Wilson is still the most honest and intelligent reader in the United States who regularly commits his gusto, perverseness, and—sometimes—boners to print. His relish and frequently bearish temper have even survived the suavely smug columns of the New Yorker. In this sampler of some four dozen of his pieces, he ranges from discussions of Finnegans Wake to John O’Hara to detective stories to Jane Austen. Throughout, his appetite remains hearty, masculine, shrewd, self-cultivated. Plainly he loves books very much, and spends most of his time with them, but as anyone will find who sniffs his pages, there is never the least smell of the lamp in the air when he writes about them.