Books: Voice of a Critic

THREE ESSAYS ON AMERICA—Van Wyck Brooks—Dutton ($3).

Criticism has forms that run the gamut from a brickbat to a disapproving silence, but criticism as a profession is not crowded with leaders. Thoughtful U. S. citizens, dazed by the soundless flicker of statistics, deafened by the screams of professional iconoclasts, lulled by the thin whisper of unco-highbrows, should be grateful for the reassuringly human voice of Critic Van Wyck Brooks. He is known by the minority that reads him as a sound, tonic, unacademic observer whose interest in the tall trees of literary...