Something to Gnaw On

BIG EYES (294 pp.)--Oriana Atkinson --Appleton-Century-Crofts ($3).

On the principle that it is prudent to sneak up behind anyone who is throwing bad fruit, Big Eyes should be read backward. The prose is scarcely more jumbled in reverse, and the many cliches are suddenly as fresh as turned sheets ("buttons shoe like eyes"). As to the story itself, which follows the spoor of a hot little hired girl into half the barns in the Catskills, either way you read it, there is a mounting interest.

The neatest trick of the novel comes on page 224: "He clasped her fragile waist . . . and held her off to enjoy the nearness of her face." From there on back, a reader can skim over the seductions like a barn swallow, and land on the only other interesting point in the book: it was written by the wife of Drama Critic Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times.

Mrs. Atkinson has dedicated her first novel to "the critic on my hearth." Her readers may wish that Mr. Atkinson had hopped off the hearth on to the manuscript, and gnawed it to shreds.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.