A series of short essays and reviews drawn from weekly columns, offering brisk literary criticism and cultural commentary. The writer assesses translation and biography, evaluates contemporary novelists, poets, and critics, and debates the responsibilities of the press and the state of modern art. Recurring concerns include aesthetic standards, the effects of war on cultural life, the role of new movements and personalities, questions of translation and metric, and responses to psychoanalysis and intellectual trends. The tone alternates between polemic and reflective, aiming to judge current literary events from a consistent critical standpoint.