Books: The We's

A PIECE OF LETTUCE by George P. Elliott. 270 pages. Random House. $4.95.

Pugnacious Poet-Novelist Elliott comes out swinging against a wide variety of targets, ranging from sex cultists to the high priests of New Criticism. The most devastating of his 15 essays, Who Is We?, concerns the 107 (Elliott's count) grand poohbahs who dominate the U.S. cultural scene from Man hattan's Morningside Heights area. They are the "Diors and Schiaparellis of intellectual fashion design," in Elliott's phrase, and include Eric Bentley, Jacques Barzun, Lionel and Diana Trilling. "What they think today," says he, "you're apt to find yourself, in a Sears,...

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