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Starting Out in the Thirties
"A stunning book. . . . Perhaps the most evocative reminiscence of a vital corner of the nineteen-thirties that we are likely to get. A beautifully written memoir in which the author's location of himself as a man, an intellectual, and a moral being is interwoven with the chronicle of an era. It is a wonderful book."--Eliot Fremont-Smith, New York Times "Men lived in the thirties, Kazin is saying, with peculiar stresses, particular faces and one or another kind of relationship to the age which bred them and asked them to respond to it. His book is as admirable a record of how they did that as any we have been given."--Richard Gilman, Dissent
166 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
About the author
Alfred Kazin
110 books44 followersAlfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America.
Kazin is regarded as one of "The New York Intellectuals", and like many other members of this group he was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and attended the City College of New York. However, his politics were more moderate than most of the New York intellectuals, many of whom were socialists. He wrote out of a great passion-- or great disgust -- for what he was reading and embedded his opinions in a deep knowledge of history, both literary history and politics and culture. He was a friend of the political theorist Hannah Arendt. In 1996 he was awarded the first Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award for literary criticism.
His son is historian and Dissent co-editor Michael Kazin.
(from wikipedia.org)
Kazin is regarded as one of "The New York Intellectuals", and like many other members of this group he was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and attended the City College of New York. However, his politics were more moderate than most of the New York intellectuals, many of whom were socialists. He wrote out of a great passion-- or great disgust -- for what he was reading and embedded his opinions in a deep knowledge of history, both literary history and politics and culture. He was a friend of the political theorist Hannah Arendt. In 1996 he was awarded the first Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award for literary criticism.
His son is historian and Dissent co-editor Michael Kazin.
(from wikipedia.org)
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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December 21, 2025Well that was fucking gorgeous.
And it’s such a shame that no one reads Kazin anymore. Looking at that paltry read count – 35 ratings before me! Thirty fucking five! – I feel the need to be a champion, so let’s go.
This is the story of a generation, of a man who loved books, socialism, and being juuuuust a bit of a slag, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll see something of yourself in there (not that I’m actually throwing my hat in the academic ring), standing at the crossroads of history and letting it all rush by. He writes like an angelic, he’s clever as hell, and god you just wanna spend more time listening. I’m 36. Now go out there and be number 37.
And it’s such a shame that no one reads Kazin anymore. Looking at that paltry read count – 35 ratings before me! Thirty fucking five! – I feel the need to be a champion, so let’s go.
This is the story of a generation, of a man who loved books, socialism, and being juuuuust a bit of a slag, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll see something of yourself in there (not that I’m actually throwing my hat in the academic ring), standing at the crossroads of history and letting it all rush by. He writes like an angelic, he’s clever as hell, and god you just wanna spend more time listening. I’m 36. Now go out there and be number 37.
June 1, 2012
Starting Out in the Thirties is the 2d volume of Kazin's autobiographical trilogy. Beginning at the end of his college courses in 1934, it traces the early years of his literary development as critic, reviewer, and teacher. These are the apprentice years when he begins to write his first book, On Native Grounds, and makes the contacts which allow him to find steady work as a reviewer. This is the dawn of the intellectual growth which will mark him as arguably the finest critical mind of the century following the death of Edmund Wilson. His increasing presence in the New York literary scene gave him admission to an impressive circle of important personalities. He knew Wilson himself but also creates portraits of such people as William Saroyan, James T. Farrell, and Clifford Odets.
The 30s for Kazin meant more than literary consciousness, though. The great engines of the decade were the Depression and socialism. Everyone was touched by the former, and the latter had enormous influence on political thinking in America. Kazin spends considerable space here writing about socialism's impact; he himself believed in its ideals, mostly as the result of exposure to it while being raised as part of the hard times immigrant experience in one of the poorer sections of Brooklyn. Socialism was everywhere when he was a child and young man, like pollen in the air. Kazin recalls the fervor of the political activism as well as the tumble of disillusion as the realization of the Moscow purges became known, followed by the Soviet Union's nonaggression pact with Hitler. They, combined with the Spanish Civil War, created, for those on the political left, an atmosphere of disenchantment during the 2d half of the decade. For Kazin there's another revelation momentous enough to warrant a brief final chapter as epilogue. In the spring of 1945, in London, he watched newsreels from the newly-liberated Belsen concentration camp which demonstrated the crimes against the Jews.
The thirties were both a time of awakening to literary learning as well as a time of movement away from the political left. He sheds the clothes of political influence and dresses himself in the habit of criticism and academia. In the beautifully written prose for which he's known, Kazin remembers those he knew and worked with during those years as well as some he treats unflatteringly, such as Mary McCarthy. He looks back, too, at Jewish life in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. It's a fascinating look at Kazin and New York. Essential reading, I would think, for those interested in either, or both.
The 30s for Kazin meant more than literary consciousness, though. The great engines of the decade were the Depression and socialism. Everyone was touched by the former, and the latter had enormous influence on political thinking in America. Kazin spends considerable space here writing about socialism's impact; he himself believed in its ideals, mostly as the result of exposure to it while being raised as part of the hard times immigrant experience in one of the poorer sections of Brooklyn. Socialism was everywhere when he was a child and young man, like pollen in the air. Kazin recalls the fervor of the political activism as well as the tumble of disillusion as the realization of the Moscow purges became known, followed by the Soviet Union's nonaggression pact with Hitler. They, combined with the Spanish Civil War, created, for those on the political left, an atmosphere of disenchantment during the 2d half of the decade. For Kazin there's another revelation momentous enough to warrant a brief final chapter as epilogue. In the spring of 1945, in London, he watched newsreels from the newly-liberated Belsen concentration camp which demonstrated the crimes against the Jews.
The thirties were both a time of awakening to literary learning as well as a time of movement away from the political left. He sheds the clothes of political influence and dresses himself in the habit of criticism and academia. In the beautifully written prose for which he's known, Kazin remembers those he knew and worked with during those years as well as some he treats unflatteringly, such as Mary McCarthy. He looks back, too, at Jewish life in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. It's a fascinating look at Kazin and New York. Essential reading, I would think, for those interested in either, or both.
February 7, 2010
1930s is eerily familiar for unexplained reasons. Kazin is so close to me in spirit I can smell the sweat on his argyle wool sweater vest when I read his work.
January 15, 2018
It strikes me that if Kazin's first part of autobiography (Walker In The City) is visually descriptive and a lyrically magical celebration of the Brooklyn in which he grew up then the second part (Starting Out In The Thirties) is a celebration of the people that are in his life through the 1930's. Certainly not as special as the first part, but an essential nonetheless...
August 29, 2023
Fascinating personal account of radical politics in the 1930’s. It was so interesting to learn about how people were thinking about radical politics and the different factions and influences from the perspective of someone who was there. Kazin’s portraits of the people around him make the book very readable and not dry at all. His sketches of his political friends were interesting, but his writing about the women in his life, particularly Sophie, were some of the most interesting parts of the book. Seeing how he thought about women and gender from a radical perspective and how his thoughts were shaped by his family and upbringing was really interesting.
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes random personal memoirs that are rooted in a specific historical context and who is interested in radical politics.
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes random personal memoirs that are rooted in a specific historical context and who is interested in radical politics.
November 29, 2025
I enjoyed this for the depictions of old timey NYC and for the parallels to more contemporary political and intellectual discourse. Same shit, different decade, in so many ways. I also kept projecting how various people in this book would post on Twitter and Bluesky, etc. An interesting book to go into knowing nothing about Kazin or very much about the literary world he inhabited. While some of the name-dropping was meaningless to me, the portraits of time and place an intellectual milieu were evocative. I'd like to read his other memoirs now.
November 1, 2016
"After three years of City College in the depths of the depression -- engulfed by ... all the most accomplished philosophers ever born to the New York streets, tireless virtuosi who threw radical argument at each other morning, noon and night with the same curves and smashes with which they played ping-pong at each other in the college basement that smelled of the oily sandwiches that we brought from home -- I was not worshipful of ideologists." (5-6)
"I did not mind being poor, Jewish, excluded, for I knew that history was on the side of such things..." (48)
"I was as excited by history as if it were a newsreel, and I saw history in every newsreel, my love and hatred of the historical actors rising to the music on the sound track like a swimmer to the surf." (86-7)
"One day in the spring of 1954, when the war against Hitler was almost won, I sat in a newsreel theater in Piccadilly looking at the first films of the newly liberated Belsen. On the screen, sticks in black-and-white prison garb leaned on a wire, staring dreamily at the camera; other sticks shuffled about, or sat vaguely on the ground, next to an enormous pile of bodies, piled up like cordwood, from which protruded legs, arms, heads. A few guards were collected sullenly in a corner, and for a moment a British Army bulldozer was shown digging an enormous hole in the ground. Then the sticks would come back on the screen, hanging on the wire, looking at us. It was unbearable. People coughed in embarrassment, and in embarrassment many laughed." (166)
"I did not mind being poor, Jewish, excluded, for I knew that history was on the side of such things..." (48)
"I was as excited by history as if it were a newsreel, and I saw history in every newsreel, my love and hatred of the historical actors rising to the music on the sound track like a swimmer to the surf." (86-7)
"One day in the spring of 1954, when the war against Hitler was almost won, I sat in a newsreel theater in Piccadilly looking at the first films of the newly liberated Belsen. On the screen, sticks in black-and-white prison garb leaned on a wire, staring dreamily at the camera; other sticks shuffled about, or sat vaguely on the ground, next to an enormous pile of bodies, piled up like cordwood, from which protruded legs, arms, heads. A few guards were collected sullenly in a corner, and for a moment a British Army bulldozer was shown digging an enormous hole in the ground. Then the sticks would come back on the screen, hanging on the wire, looking at us. It was unbearable. People coughed in embarrassment, and in embarrassment many laughed." (166)
July 29, 2008
Kazin is a prig, a misogynist, a hypocrite and a hanger-on. Though he does capture something of the spirit of the Thirties.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews