THE PARTISAN REVIEW ANTHOLOGY

The Partisan Review is America's most influential little magazine; now in its third anthologizing, (and this one is the best and biggest, covering the full 27 year span), we have as excitingly highbrow an entertainment as anyone could want. In fact, its virtues, at times, become its only vices: just about every bright boy and girl has already read Eliot's essay on Music-of-Poetry, Mary McCarthy's on Character, Howe's on Conformity, Vidal's on Love, etc., along with well- known Lowell or Thomas poems, Babel or Malamud tales, and of course, Rosenfeld's George. Fortunately, besides these anthology pieces, editors Phillips and Rahv wisely include many somewhat-neglected gems: Valery on Flaubert; Conversations with Kafka, an amazing document; Trilling's superb what's-modern-in-modern-lit bit; Religion and the Intellectual, an all-star symposium; Sidney Hook attacking the new mysticism; Malraux inspecting Art and Troy dissecting Lawrence. Only a few slightly dated items (verse by Barker and Fearing) or jaded (hoopla from Allen Ginsberg). A gratifying event.