Against the Grain: The New Criterion on Art and Intellect at the End of the Twentieth Century.

Against the Grain: The New Criterion on Art and Intellect at the End of the Twentieth Century, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball (Ivan R. Dee, 480 pp., $35)

THE TEMPTATION to be a curmudgeon is hard to withstand. When a drama critic encounters a "Gay Fantasia" or an art critic encounters an exhibition of soiled teddy bears -- indeed when anyone trained in anything encounters the self-congratulatory work of someone trained in nothing -- it is very difficult to resist the temptation to lay back one's ears and bray. But The New Criterion -- possibly America's most distinguished intellectual journal -- has succeeded since 1982 not merely in deriding puerility but also in promoting work held to a higher standard. Ranging from Hilton Kramer on the art museum to Joseph Epstein on Henry James, from Samuel Lipman on classical music to David Frum on John Maynard Keynes, the 45 essays from The New Criterion republished here are intelligent, witty, and grown-up -- which remains the best answer to the protracted adolescence that too often passes for contemporary art and thought.