Reviews

West is a literary and cultural critic of extraordinary skill, as evidenced in his earlier volumes of criticism (Vol. 1, LJ 6/1/87; Vol. 2, LJ 2/1/91). In this latest work he has added essays on war, again written with uncommon skill. He penetrates the usual rhetoric by noting, "We will never understand war, or TV, until we are watching ourselves being bombed this very minute, here in America, home of the safe." Devotees of exceptional writing will find the keenest comfort in West's views on Proust ("swing with him"), Mann ("an inexhaustible object of contemplation"), and several famous others. West also assays others who are not so well known but hones his criticism of them with such artistry that each becomes a writer that must be read. In an essay entitled "Judge Not," West writes, "All I ask for is excellence." That he certainly has. Well recommended for literature collections.-Robert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., Ind.

West, no mean novelist himself (Rat Man of Paris, among others) is in love with the infinite expressive possibilities of the novel, and this anthology of his critical writings is an eloquent accounting of his passion. In six longer essays and nearly 40 reviews from various sources he makes his tastes abundantly clear. He is bored by the conventional well-made novel, and seeks out adventurous, mind-expanding work, from Virginia Woolf's Orlando through the Latin American magic realists and beyond, to many of the major names of contemporary European fiction. (William Gass, Guy Davenport, Walter Abish and Evan Connell are the only Americans found in his pantheon.) It's a limited view of fiction, but West pursues it with great zeal, a refreshing dash in the writingcompared to his, most literary criticism is a genteel snoozeand an eager sense of discovery. It's almost impossible not to be lured to read some of his cherished, little-known prizes: Osman Lins of Brazil, Juan Goytisolo of Spain, for instance; impossible, too, not to realize how provincial much American fiction reviewing is by comparison. (April 29)