Books

"Listen, Jack, I've got a book for you – the kind of a book you've always dreamed about. It doesn't verge on the obscene – it is obscenity incarnate." Jack Kahane, a wily Britisher, grabbed the feelthy theeng, published it under the imprimatur of his Obelisk Press in Paris, sat back and watched the eyeballs pop.

Thus were the birth pangs of Henry Miller's thumpingly sensual, nakedly libidinous Tropic of Cancer, the first full-length effort of one of this century's most controversial authors. Shortly after publication, several copies of the book drifted to America and Britain, where it was promptly and unequivocally banned (and still is). Starchy souls blanched at the mention of his name (and still do). French critics roared his genius, New York and London critics alternately tsktsked and smiled.

We picked up a copy of Cancer several years ago in Paris, zipped through it with mild interest, and wondered what sort of gentleman Miller must be. Cancer, as well as the succeeding Tropic of Capricorn, is admitedly sluiced with a lot of autobiographical detail, but not enough to sketch the author vividly. Now, we have My Friend, Henry Miller (John Day, $4), a wildly eulogistic portrait of the artist penned by a long-time Miller drinking crony, Alfred Perles, and a beguilingly colorful bio it is.

Bulging with every derelict, boozer, hop-head, talker, genius, whore and bitch who ever sopped up brandy at The Dome, the Parisian world of the Thirties, as Perles-Miller lived it, contained a whole cageful of those magnificent "thinkers" who tinkered away their existence with a fetching sort of purposeful purposelessness. Clearly, Miller was several cuts above the run-of-the-gin-mill Left Bank bum, had a knack for cocking a sharp, critical eye at life. Writing tons of lyrical, crackling prose came as easily to him as sipping Pomard or fondling a leggy blonde. You can't purchase the more "controversial" Miller books (unless you know a guy who knows a guy), but you can enjoy Perles' fast, disjointed account of the life he led –a whiz-bang revolution against "a world grown paralyzed with introspection and constipated by delicate mental meals."

Chick Swallow's debut into the rites of love resulted in several anxious days of suspected pregnancy. When he discovered it was a false alarm, he was so relieved he married the girl. Later on in life, the handsome wife of a traveling man invited him in to glim an album of hobbyist hubby's arty photos – including nude shots of herself. This led to a nodding acquaintance with adultery, which in turn led to his being photographed by aforesaid husband in bed with aforesaid wife. On the side, a pair of juvenile delinquents got hold of some innocent letters from Chick to the same lady, pepped them up by judicious editing, suggested a little friendly blackmail. Then Chick's wife threatened to sue the lady to the tune of $65 for alienation of affections, and Chick himself was soon in court accused of "willfully and irresponsibly practicing hypnosis" upon a certain "small sumptuosity" named Sherry Budd. Little wonder, then, that the title of Peter De Vries' new novel has been cribbed from the Song of Solomon: "Stay me with flagons, Comfort Me With Apples (Little, Brown, $3.50), for I am sick of love." The pounds of plot are peppered with the puns and aphorisms which – ever since his first novel, The Tunnel of Love – readers have come to expect from verbal virtuoso De Vries.

Some months ago, before we took to reviewing books, a volume of non-fiction called The Exurbanites (Lippincott, $3.95) was published. We wouldn't mention it at this late date, but for the fact that its author, A. C. Spectorsky, has joined up on the staff, and how can we ignore, even retroactively, the work of a colleague? This book, then, is a guided tour – with jokes – through the mazes of the rat race of the communications biz, especially as the race is run by commuters from the smarter outlands surrounding New York City. Maybe we should have said misguided tour; every peril and perplexity of Ulcer Gulch is brutally exposed. One sleepless night spent reading it now may save you many sleepless nights in later life, when you're trapped and it's too late. If we may tamper with T. S. Eliot, we'd say the theme of the book is: This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a mortgage.

And while we're tooting our own sousaphone, we may as well point out the laurels reaped by another colleague, Ray Russell, for his science–fiction story, The Pleasure Was Ours; and by Robert Sheckley for his Spy Story (Playboy, Sept., 1955). Both yarns are considered "too good to be ignored" by Judith Merril, editor of S–F: The Year's Greatest Science–Fiction and Fantasy (Dell First Edition, 35c), in which volume they receive Honorable Mention.

Anyone for Oh Hell? Or Beggar Your Neighbor, Wild Widow, or maybe Schnipp – Schnapp – Schnurr – Burr – Basilorum? Games all, you'll find them in The New Complete Hoyle (Garden City, $3.95), edited by three light–fingered experts not including Mr. Hoyle (who kicked off in 1796, a good 50 years before the coming of poker). It's a fat (700 page), fun–filled volume containing reams of information on more than 500 games of chance, and bursting with rules, tactics and even an odds–against chart for drawing to that inside straight.

The Golden Ham (Simon & Schuster, $3.95) makes mincemeat out of television's prince of pratfalls, Jackie Gleason. This is a "candid biography" of the great Brooklyn–born hamhock, and author Jim Bishop gleefully peels back layer after layer of the corpulent Mr. Gleason: glutton, lush, gasbag, egomaniac, emotional boob, and sometime clever comic. "Am I supposed to indignantly shout 'libel–fable' in offense, or meekly murmur 'circumstance–adversity' in defense?" asks Jackie on the dust jacket. The question is purely rhetorical. It's a dan–dan–dandy book.

If you can imagine writing the biography of a complex character on the basis of telephonic acquaintance, you can imagine the problem that faced French jazzman Andre Hodeir when he undertook to write a critical history of American jazz on the basis of listening to records. From Hodeir's point of view, that aspect of it was a breeze; in his preface to Jazz, Its Evolution and Essence (Grove, $3.50) he says, "The judgments ... in this book are based on recordings, which have reached a stage of technical perfection that makes such an approach valid." Could be.

The book itself is a vigorous, lucid, rather long–in–the–locks take–out on all phases of jazz, from New Orleans to immediately after the death of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, one of Hodeir's heroes, in March of 1955. Hodeir is acute, opinionated, courageous in attacking such nebulous aspects of the art as "collective creation" and "the cool sonority," and humility is not his handmaiden. One reason is that he has solid musical authority despite his geographical distance from the American Jazz Hot, before that won first prizes at the Paris Conservatory in harmony, fugue, and musical history, and has appeared as a performer with some of the top French combos, jazz and classical. A comprehensive job, studded with musicological hipnitude.

We will be very disappointed if an enterprising film producer doesn't marshall Jack Hawkins, Stanley Holloway and Alistair Sim to play, respectively, the roles of Prince, Bunt and Captain Overton in a screen version of Aubrey Menen's The Abode of Love (Scribner's, $3.50). It's a factual story, told with all the flavor and fun of fabrication. Byron's tired old bromide about truth being stranger than fiction seems tailor–made for this witty account of "The Conception, Financing and Daily Routine of an English Harem in the Middle of the 19th Century, Described in the Form of a Novel" (to quote the topheavy subtitle).

A Short Trot with a Cultured Mind (Simon & Schuster, $3.95) isn't as cultured as all that, so don't be scared away by the title. It's a brace of funny pieces by Britain's Patrick Campbell, and if the humor of that sceptred isle is your dish of tea (we must confess we're partial to the stuff every now and then), you'll enjoy many a grin and a few guffaws with the collection ... Less rewarding, though by no means a total loss, is the autobiography P. G. Wodehouse chooses to call America, I Like You (Simon & Schuster, $3.50). The wonderful Wodehouse wackiness flares up only intermittently in this series of digressions, but it's pleasant perusing if you follow P. G.'s advice and read the book only when "flushed with heady wines and smoking a good cigar." We did just that, and came away smiling.