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ALFRED KAZIN
for "aesthetic" criticism today is derivative and repetitive and has
nothing of the aesthetic in its spirit or teaching. Criticism
is
inter–
esting, after all, only to the extent that it
is
valuable, and much of
what is published today is less pertinent than literary scholarship or
the historical consciousness of those who guard a literary tradition.
Lukacs's book is imperfect as a study of realism and obviously in–
complete. Yet it is a tribute to him and to what
is
creative and
enduring in Marxism as a philosophy that his book, with all its faults
and expediencies, should suggest so much of the vitality and enduring
hope in the great novelists whom he loves.
