BOOKS
ESSAYS AND FORAYS
THE AGE OF THE AVANT-GARDE: AN ART CHRONICLE OF 1956-
1972. By Hilton Kramer, Farrar, Straus and Giroux . $15 .00.
OTHER CRITERIA: CONFRONTATIONS WITH TWENTIETH CEN–
TURY ART. By Leo Steinberg. Oxford University Press . $17.50 .
DISCOVERING THE PRESENT: THREE DECADES IN ART, CUL–
TURE AND POLITICS. By Harold Rosenberg . The University of
Chicago Press. $10 .00 .
THE CRITICAL POINT: ON LITERATURE AND CULTURE. By Irving
Howe. Horizon Press . $7.95 .
DISCRIMINATIONS: ESSAYS AND AFTERTHOUGHTS, 1938-1973.
By Dwight Macdonald . Grossman Publishers. $15.00.
An Englishman, confronted with this batch of New York criti–
cism , finds it natural
to
reflect ruefully on the contrast between the American
metropolis and his own . It is not merely a matter of there being more talent in
New York, for in that we may say there is an element of luck ; the inferiority of
London is also an economic inferiority , and it is likely to grow more marked as
both capitals experience , each in its own measure and in proportion to its own
wealth , the worst of the inflationary slump that lies ahead. It is a good while
since Dwight Macdonald compared the two cities and uttered his famous
eulogy of London ; I do not think he would want to say it over again . At any
rate it is inconceivable that he could claim for the London of the 70s an ability
to match the achievement represented by this random collection of books.
It
is New York and not London that has kept open the channels of serious
conversation about politics and the arts . The only monthlies published in
London that have any claim
to
be thought of as formative of opinion at a
serious
level-Encounter
apart , as it must always be-are, I suppose,
The
London Magazine
and
The N ew Review .
The first of these is a pleasant journal
of tiny circulation and very little influence. The second began life earlier this
year with a large subsidy-large , anyway, by English standards-from the
Arts Council. It has not got away
to
a good start, contriving to be at once
cliquish and " mid-cult." The circulation of the good weeklies is falling
