Books: Come All Over Patriotic

BREWSIE AND WILLIE (114 pp.)—Gertrude Stein—Random House ($2).

"I was always in my way a Civil War veteran," confesses Gertrude Stein—and, indeed, her new book about World War II veterans has much of the quaint, rheumy, talky quality of old soldiers. It is, of course, superimposed upon the girlish extravagances with which Author Stein has perplexed the English-speaking world for a generation.

"My gracious, my good gracious," laments a homeward-bound G.I. in Brewsie and Willie, "Oh my good gracious, oh my good gracious . . . my good gracious. I just could kind of just cry when I think we all got...