All in all, a worthy and enjoyable read. Concise and not overly demanding. A few misplaced commas, less-than-crystalline constructions, typos, and odd prepositions in the translation, but nothing too glaring.
On the first essay, "Artists and Dictators":
A fine, clear, mainly expository pamphlet on Italian and Russian Futurism, the Bauhaus, and the Italian, Soviet, and German dictatorships that grew in part from the artistic movements that took root in the years following WWI. If anything, errs on the side of oversimplification (i.e. putting forth that "Communism died a natural death" -- one could argue that it hasn't breathed its last, and I'm sure that many who suffered/continue to suffer under it would say that Communism's end has been/is extremely destructive, bitter, and murderous).
I am not pleased that Todorov slips in an indictment of Romantic values in the last page or two. I don't think it's true that Romanticism "set up a radical antithesis between low and high, present and future, evil and good, and sought to eliminate the first term of each opposition definitively." Certainly not! For the first 58 pages Todorov talks about avant-garde movements as based on similar radical ideas, but I really can't agree that the Romantics had such an insidious agenda. Perhaps the ideas of Wagner had something to do with those of Marinetti and others, but the link to Romanticism is just too tenuous. I don't know of anyone who would think of Wagner as representing Romanticism, a huge, beautiful, and in my mind often naive period focusing on the beauty and sadness of the individual in a rapidly advancing and essentially unfriendly technical society (represented clearly by the obviously anti-individual, machine-obsessed Futurists). I do not think that Romanticism is at all dogmatic, and I would say that, in its pure form (not referring here to Wagner), it's anything but radical. On the contrary, I see it as reactionary more than anything else.
On the second essay, "Art and Ethics":
A brief history of, and commentary on, the development of thought about the purpose of art (to serve morality a la Plato, for example, through "l'art pour l'art").
On a personal note, whenever I walk inadvertently into a museum room filled with paintings of Jesus, I walk quickly and purposefully to a different room. Todorov articulates the modern frame of mind which causes my repulsion to art which essentially serves an external morality. In our historical context:
"Artworks that stand as dutiful illustrations of one doctrine or another hardly deserve to be qualified as artistic, or, at any rate, cannot aspire to the category of 'great art'."
Of course, many would take issue with such a statement, but in my estimation, it's spot on.
Some further ideas from the essay:
"The market imposes a tyranny all its own, without doubt, but it has no moral content."
Quoting Rilke: "The true artist 'knew how to repress his love for each single apple and to store it in a painted apple forever'."
It's wonderful to see Iris Murdoch taken into serious consideration in this essay. For instance:
"What makes art is 'a loving respect for a reality other than oneself'."
Purposes of "delight" vs. "instruction". I recently experienced the ballet Onegin as serving both very strongly. But, of course, in the age of TV and ratings, the distinction has been drawn sharply.
Deconstruction: "worrisome as a sign of the spirit of the times".
In the end, the oppositional dichotomy of Murdoch vs. Marinetti is a terribly striking one!
I would tend to agree with Wayne Booth, Martha Nussbaum, Carroll, Kant and co. when they state that reading and absorbing the actions of fictional characters is a moral act. Todorov finds this claim "overly dependent on the condition designated by the clause 'if we read well.' There is nothing automatic about the moral improvement of readers." Well, there is nothing automatic about the moral improvement of anyone; personal growth is dependent upon experience, interpretation, and conclusions all achieved through hard work. Why should the reading of a novel not offer as clear a path to self-development and self-realization as any other experience? Of course, one does not always read "well", but if people always lived well, we wouldn't have to think in the least about whether or not art humanizes and morally improves us. I find Todorov's (and Rousseau's) argument to the contrary quite puzzling and wholly unconvincing. In fact, I am surprised that Todorov does not give readers (not least of all his own) more credit.