Books: Collegiate

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ASK ME TOMORROW-James Gould Cozzens-Harcourf, Brace ($2.50).

Francis Ellery is what Tennyson (describing himself and a whole species) once called a Second-Rate Sensitive Mind. As a New England, church-school and Harvard-educated author, Ellery, a poor young man, hires himself out to tutor and take care of twelve-year-old Walter Cunningham, who is lame but game and liable to seizures of asthma. Ellery's harder job is to satisfy Walter's mother of his absolute trustworthiness and interest in Walter. It isn't so bad as long as they are stranded in Switzerland, but when they move to southern France, within a few miles of Francis' beloved Lorna Higham, it becomes unpleasant, virtually impossible. Ellery's consequent frustrations, quarrels, subtle humiliations could hardly be more cruelly told.

But they could be more effective if 36-year-old James Gould Cozzens had a little more clearly outgrown his hero. As a psychologist he has the failing of sometimes being taken in by his subjects. Skilled though he is as a craftsman, Author Cozzens still shows a sophomoric taste for elaborate ironies and facetious quotations from the Oxford Book of English Verse. Result: Cozzens, who continues to perform as if he might some day write a really good novel, is still a quite good entertainment man.