the partisan review anthology

The Partisan Review was one of 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) -- 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).