Books: Short Notices: Apr. 22, 1966

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NJEGOŠ by Milovan Djilas. 498 pages. Harcourt, Brace & World. $10.

Milovan Djilas is probably the world's most publicized political prisoner. He may also be the most published. A former Vice Premier in Marshal Tito's government, he was slapped into jail in 1956 for his sizzling censures of the regime. There he has languished loquaciously for almost a decade, fearlessly issuing criticism, history and fiction about life in Yugoslavia (Conversations with Stalin, The New Class). This book, completed in 1959, is the first detailed biography of Petar II Petrović Njegoš, Prince-Bishop (from 1830 to 1851) of Djilas' native Montenegro, and Serbia's greatest poet. Njegoš is severely out of phase with Djilas' usually remarkable work, however. It is turgid in style and parochial in scope. Even in the U.S., where there are more Serbs than in all Ljubljana, Njegoš is not likely to find much more of an appreciative audience.

THE BALLAD OF DINGUS MAGEE by David Markson. 202 pages. Bobbs-Merrill. $4.

This wild West spoof is stacked with enough sagebrush clichés to make it high Campfire. Runty Dingus Magee, who goes around building a reputation as a desperado by taking credit for other people's crimes, is sometimes a delightful composite of all western bad men; at other times, he is merely a hapless, scheming little schnook. As a result, parts of the book are rollickingly funny parody, while other parts are slapstuck.