SOURCE: A review of Writing Was Everything, in New Republic, Vol. 213, No. 15, October 9, 1995, pp. 37-9.

[Benfey is an American educator and critic. The following is his commendatory review of Writing Was Everything.]

The greatest literary critic now at work in America? Hard to name anyone to challenge Alfred Kazin; and not just because, having turned 80 this year, he has outlived the competition. What he has over his younger successors (whom he graciously describes as writing literary journalism that is "smarter, more detached, always performing and performative, than it was when I began") is a genuine humility in the presence of major art, and a concomitant capacity to be surprised. This latter gift has not diminished with the years. Without looking them up, I can remember several occasions—a volume of stories by Richard Ford, a lecture on Emily Dickinson at the Folger Library in Washington, a recent review...