Connubia

THE LOVE NEST AND OTHER STORIES -- Ring W. Lardner -- Scribner ($1.75). The tall morose funnyman from Niles, Mich., gives no indication of having been disconcerted by the jubilee chorus of critics that lately discovered he was a Great Mind. He just goes steadily along, more silent than ever: honing his wits on the leathernecks he meets; pruning his technique down finer and finer; laying out, in patterns that grow increasingly simple and subtle, the terrific banalities that constitute life for the average Americano--that ubiquitous creature that no one ever sees in his own shaving mirror. Husbands and wives are the chief butt of Lardnerian irony, nor has he yet exhausted his variations on the subject. "The Love Nest," "Who Dealt?" and "Reunion" -- all connubia-- are the three best tricks in this new bagful, unless you choose "Haircut," wherein a smalltown barber unconsciously reveals his hero as a downright skunk. Most of the stories reflect the writer's present environment (Manhattan), figuring producers, stage folk, song-johnnies and the like. In "Women" he is true to his old love-- ball players.