Mischievous Mystic

THERE IS ANOTHER HEAVEN--Robert Nathan--Bobbs-Merrill ($2).

In his eighth novel, Robert Nathan makes gentle fun of the discrepancy between Christian faith and Christian observation. His hero Levy, yearning after the Christ, changes his name to Lewis. Crossing the River Jordan he arrives, not in the land of milk and honey, but in a welter of May parties, prejudices, Mother's days, fishings, bathings--a whole satirically tinted landscape of Gentile normalities. Lonely, without angels, relatives or the Christ, Lewis quits this stupid paradise, flings himself into the river, returns to the Bread of Life. Author Nathan's mysticism is mischievous, grace ful--perhaps too much so to be taken seriously.