Off the Bookshelf

Oxford University Press, 155 pp., $18.95

The Elsewhere Community is not a bad choice to while away an hour or two if you're a fan of the loftier figures of the literary world. Kenner, a distinguished critic of modernist literature, was a protégé and confidant of some of the greatest modernist writers of his time, most notably Ezra Pound, Samuel Beckett, and William Carlos Williams. His "elsewhere community" is made up of the folks -- both readers and practitioners -- who share a passion for the newness that comes from fresh readings from like-minded souls, whether those writers lived 50 or 350 years ago. This connection is especially borne out as Kenner notes the connections between literature and travel -- for example, in the parallel reactions of Milton and Wordsworth to their Italian tours. Kenner links the tradition of the Continental Grand Tour (once de rigueur for any gentleman's education) to that world that readers -- or good readers, anyway -- find between the covers of books. But the intellectual result of these essays is desultory at best: The author ties together various appealing but un-captivating ideas without ever achieving any grand synthesis of them. Still, literature junkies will appreciate Kenner's anecdotes of his meetings with modernist writers, as well as his skillful but scattered readings of various poetic fragments.