Iconoclast

...Because his essays so clearly define a so-called radical position, it may be tempting to believe that von Hoffman has written for the purpose of proving an ideology...

...Further, he may both create and attack rivals, as illustrated in the curious case of Spiro Ag-new, Frankenstein of the Fourth Estate and himself an aspiring Mencken of the hard hats...

...Few of these privileged journalists write so persuasively as Nicholas von Hoffman, cultural affairs editor of The Washington Post...

...In plying his trade, the columnist is allowed the use of satire, sarcasm, bombast, and even sweet reason...

...Standing alone, his work is less impressive, not only because of the lack of invidious contrast but because an assemblage of short, timely, pointed essays seldom totals a book...

...His writing is brilliant when seen against the dull gray of his competitors on the news and editorial pages...

...But this is not the case, as his attack on fashionable revolutionary rhetoric makes evident...

...It is his exalted task to give shape and meaning to contemporary events which appear in the front section of the typical daily as a jumble of local, national, and international sensations...

...He may defend conventional strictures on four-letter words (on the grounds that obscenity must be off bounds to be effective), expound the two-factor theory of economics, define Together Man ("so free flowing that he won't stand still and fight") as the enemy of the Establishment, scatter a herd of sacred cows, or draw a poignant human interest portrait...

...Nicholas von Hoffman is an experiential rather than a theoretical journalist...

...Perhaps these columns would better have been left at the Post...

...His style is unremarkable, but his range is wide and his message is often enough provocative...