Mr. Bloom's surprise best seller was gathering kudos and brickbats around the

country; the only disappointment here is that he proves to be not always as focused viva voce as he is on the page. Still, an interesting and often moving look at the sad state of the American academy. AB: "Since I was in a university, since I began in 1946, the universities were instruments of egalitarianism. It was there that the civil-rights movement was generated. Everybody I know affirmed those American principles and worked for them. And then suddenly, when the movement came to its head, it said that the universities were corrupt instruments of the old accommodation. So the very source, the place where the principles were held, and knowingly held in a scholarly way, where people could affirm them not only with their passion but with their reason, was discredited."