SOURCE: Grattan, C. Hartley. “The Mahabharata Blues.” The Nation 130, no. 3388 (11 June 1930): 684-86.

In the following negative review of Orage's The Art of Reading, Grattan finds few ideas of lasting import despite Orage's reputation.

A. R. Orage has a vast reputation for profundity, and indeed is more than a literary critic in the eyes of his intimates: he is a sage. But I fail to see what it is that so interests our Columbuses of the spirit, for I can find nothing in the man except an Englishman who happens to be a fairly interesting critic. And it would be a gross bit of flattery to say that as a critic he deserves the majuscule.

This latest book of his [The Art of Reading] is made up of selected excerpts from literary notes originally printed in the New Age. It is amusingly miscellaneous, and whoever tried to get some...