Benchley Babble

HUMOR

THE EARLY WORM--Robert Benchley (Illustrated by Gluyas Williams)--Holt ($2). Funnyman Benchley's creek of comedy has by no means yet run dry. He babbles gently on in parody of Sherwood Anderson, H. G. Wells, Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Beer, polar expeditions, founding a night club, interviewing celebrities, solving crimes, stabilizing francs. His method of reductio ad imbecillum is to expound a subject in its simplest terms, putting caricaturist's emphasis on one or two superficial details. Example: "According to Dr. Max Hartmann . . . there is no such thing as absolute sex. If 60% of your cells are masculine you rate as a male. If 60% are feminine, you sit with the girls. All combinations are possible up to 99 and 1, but the 100 percenter is a myth. Dr. Hartmann says so.

"This is going to be a big surprise to a lot of people. . . ."