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Reviews
A Voice Still Heard: Selected Essays of Irving Howe by Morris Dickstein, Irving Howe, Nina Howe
robertlashley's review against another edition
2.0
Sam Tannehaus complaint in the NYT-that Howe's daughter didn't put in the generalities he made as a right winger with the ones he made as a left one-unintentionally highlights his(and many other's people's) point: that Irving wasn't that good of a critic. Randall Jarrell made a very eloquent statement when he said " when I read a review, I want to know everything about the reviewer's argument ( in regards to the text) and nothing about the reviewer". A Voice Still Heard is primarily about Irving Howe.
Did he have some thoughtful, unique things to say about being a liberal and anti communist? Yes, but the bulk of his essays were the click bait of their time. His attacks on Ellison, Baldwin, and Millett weren't just "wrong", they were lazy, breathtakingly so, full of ad hominem conjectures that had nothing to do what his subjects had put on the page but got attention because they knew what buttons to push at the right moment. They were intellectually unserious about the three most serious subjects in the history of this nation,( race, gender, sexuality), and they got a rise out of people not because he was a formidable foil but because he was a formidable thorn. Even the essays where I "Agree" with him do nothing for me, illuminating nothing about the text and everything about the mind of Irving Howe.
Did he have some thoughtful, unique things to say about being a liberal and anti communist? Yes, but the bulk of his essays were the click bait of their time. His attacks on Ellison, Baldwin, and Millett weren't just "wrong", they were lazy, breathtakingly so, full of ad hominem conjectures that had nothing to do what his subjects had put on the page but got attention because they knew what buttons to push at the right moment. They were intellectually unserious about the three most serious subjects in the history of this nation,( race, gender, sexuality), and they got a rise out of people not because he was a formidable foil but because he was a formidable thorn. Even the essays where I "Agree" with him do nothing for me, illuminating nothing about the text and everything about the mind of Irving Howe.
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