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The article discusses the plight of book reviewers. The reviewer is a person with many difficulties. Even if he manages to get at the grub, the reviewer is still regarded suspiciously as an ungrateful swine, like a guest at table who complains about the lack of taste in another man's cooking. Reviewing is therefore presumably not a job for those who value human company, or other people's opinions. The reviewer, out- and downcast, cuts a sad and sorry figure: sitting alone late at night, watching the clock, sipping imitation absinthe, buttering other men's toast, licking his fingers, and biting and unbuttoning his lip. Certainly, it is true, the reviewer needs an iron stomach, blinkers, and empty pockets, and it is undoubtedly a job for the thick-skinned and the fleet of wrist. Those who possess neither should be warned off, and, anyway, anyone with any sense soon gives it up. Being a reviewer requires to read fast. The reviewer is usually working during the day--one cannot make a living reviewing--and so one has to read and write about the books at night, before bedtime. It is always a race before sleep. It is difficult to say whether reading fast is better or worse, or feels different from reading slowly, because once one has begun to read fast, one cannot remember what it was like to ever read slowly.

Comments on the style and form of writing of W.H. Auden. Criticisms of John Fuller and Edward Mendelson; Tone and content of the Commentary; Belief of Mendelson on poems as made from ideas; Assumption of Fuller on poetry as made up of many parts.