Roaring 50s

THE PRIVATE DINING ROOM (169 pp.)--Ogden Nash--Litfle, Brown ($3). There have been persistent reports that Ogden Nash, long aged 30, had decided to enter his 50s and assume a middle-aged spread. The rumors are now confirmed by Poet Nash (born 1902) himself. Poem after poem in this new collection indicates a deliberate relapse into maturity; a new horizon shows both in waist and vision, along with such signal quirks as a grumpy dislike for opinionated young men and a difficulty in reading the phone book without glasses. There is even a blunt admission that when a man reaches his 50s he inclines to cast aside his jackboots and reach for his slippers:

When I was young I was Roland and Oliver,

Nathan Hale and Simon Bolivar.

Today I would rather sidestep trouble

and be healthy, wealthy and comfortable.

What middle-age has not withered is Poet Nash's determination to do his work with craftmanship:

I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at sea birds I leave no tern unstoned,

I am a meticulous man, and when I portray baboons I leave no stern untoned.

Which means that in The Private Dining Room, Nash does his utmost to portray life with the mingled tolerance and grouchiness that follow an obligatory loosening of the belt. He finds for example, that there is very little satisfaction in talking with the younger generation:

They don't know Hagen from Bobby Jones,

They never heard Al Smith,

Even Red Grange is beyond their range,

And Dempsey is a myth . . .

I'm tired of defining hadn't oughts

To opposition mulish,

The thoughts of youth are long long thoughts,

And Jingo! Aren't they foolish!

But he has come to believe that, give a lot, take a little, men can get along with women:

And the battle of the sexes can be a most

enjoyable scrimmage

If you'll only stop trying to create

woman in your own image.

Under the elderly slouch, the authentic Nash stance is still evident. It is that of a poet who has provoked so many chuckles by stating good sense in metrical nonsense that many readers have never paused to appraise the discipline, economy and pungency of the Nash poem at its best. One of the best in this collection is The Visit. Here, in two dozen lines, is the whole armor of Ogden Nash--the sardonic side glance, the aptly distorted word, the poised cold shoulder, the burial of victims in cliches of their own choosing:

She welcomes him with pretty impatience

And a cry of Greetings and salutations!

To which remark, no laggard, he

Ripostes with a Long time no see,

Recovering her poise full soon,

She bids him Anyhoo, sit ye doon

And settling by the fireside,

He chuckles, Thank you, kind sir, she cried.

Snug as a bug, the cup he waits

That cheers but not inebriates,

She offers him a truly ducal tea,

Whipped up, she says, with no diffewclty.

A miracle, if I didn't know you,

He says--It only shows to 'go you.

Eying her o'er the fragrant brew,

He tells her her smile is picturescue,

And now he whispers, a bit pajamaly,

That he's fed to the teeth with his whole fam damily,

Perhaps she'll forgive an old man's crotchet

And visit Bermuda on his Yachat,

She says she might, despite Dame Rumor,

Because he is a who than whom none is whomer.

He sidles close, but no cigar--

Until the yachat, au reservoir.

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