Books: Picaresque

JUAN IN AMERICA—Eric Linklater—Cape & Smith ($2.50).*

With an excess of exuberance but never of malice, Eric Linklater describes the rollicking picaresque progress of a young Englishman through the U. S. The satire is incidental, gentle but pervasive; and the modest story of Juan Motley's pilgrimage yields up many an authentic bellylaugh.

As a U. S. Ulysses, Juan was fortunate in having an Anglo-U. S. ancestry which had happily planted family connections at strategic points over the country. His forefathers had founded the middle-western college of Motley. Thither went Juan...