Travesty

JINGLING IN THE WIND--Elizabeth Madox Roberts--Viking ($2.00).

In cadenced prose Author Roberts has written two substantial U. S. novels that have feeling and sound sense. Whether she wearied of her impeccable artistic performance; or whether moving to New York from her Kentucky mountains proved too kaleidoscopic; or whether the critic lives up to his proverbial reputation for obtuseness, Jingling in the Wind is utterly meaningless potpourri of pleasant enough bits of satire, glimpses of nature, young men in love. A 21st century substitute for Prometheus is Jeremy, rainmaker, who journeys to the rainmakers' convention. On the way the motorbus is stalled, and each passenger tells an inferior Canterbury tale (the title of the book is also from Chaucer). Distinction is reserved for the format of one tale: only those words are set down which Jeremy, dreaming of his love, happens to catch. Stripped of verbosity, the skeleton is a good model for conversational monologists.