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PLATZO AND THE MEXICAN PONY RIDER by Theodore Isaac Rubin. 176 pages. Trident. $4.95.
As a reliable guide to the adolescent mind, Psychiatrist Rubin established his credentials in Lisa and David, the authentic case history of two youthful mental patients that was even better as the movie David and Lisa. This time the guide has thrown away his map. In the book's two unconnected episodes, he conducts a ramble through the thoughts of two 16-year-old boys who have nothing in common but an unrequited appetite for human contact. "Platzo" is the fantasy name that Arthur Turbitzky, a nice, repressed Jewish boy, bestows on himself, explaining to the reader "Platz means place in Jewish and German. It also means to burst." "The Mexican Pony Rider" is also a pseudonym; behind it, an unnamed juvenile delinquent prowls Manhattan, fancying himself a blend of pony-express rider ("Nothing bugged them") and Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata! These formless reveries might make source material for an analyst, who is paid to listen.
ONE DAY by Wright Morris. 433 pages. Atheneum. $5.95.
The formula used in The Bridge of San Luis Rey is here applied to an odd bunch of California misfits; the catastrophe they share is the news of President Kennedy's assassination. As the shock wave reverberates through their minds, Morris reveals the cracks and flaws of personality that in his view divide Americans from one another and thus make such a senseless outrage all too understandable. The book has the makings of a strong sermon; as a novel it runs aground within 50 pages in the shallows of its eccentric cast.
WHAT BECAME OF GUNNER ASCH by Hans Hellmut Kirst. 275 pages. Harper & Row. $4.95.
The way to survive in Hitler's army, as Hans Hellmut Kirst explained in his Gunner Asch trilogy, was to play the old army game. Now he explains how to survive in the new German army. Same way, but with a difference. Readers of the trilogy were amused to discover that Hitler's Wehrmacht had a silly side. The Bundeswehr, on the other hand, seems distant and dull.
THE JEALOUS GOD by John Braine. 286 pages. Houghfon Mifflin. $4.95.
No longer the Angry Young Man who wrote Room at the Top, Britain's John Braine here dabbles in religious sensibility. At 30, Vincent Dungarvan is still a mother's boy, a virginal Irish schoolmaster who likes music, poetry, teaching and, best of all, to keep safely within his ivory tower and dream, "a pleasure that couldn't commit him, couldn't puzzle him, couldn't humiliate him." Vincent's Mom, who keeps his house and conscience for him, wants him to embrace the priestly life. A green-eyed Protestant offers him something better to embrace. She is as unhappily married as he is unhappily single, and warily they begin an affair. It sours. Then, from complications arising out of their relationship, her weakling husband kills himself. All obstacles magically removed, the lovers are reunited. "It's bad," says one of Author Braine's characters, discussing Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven. "It's supposed to be about God, but actually it's about sex." Speak for yourself, John.
FUNERAL IN BERLIN by Len Deighton. 312 pages. Pufnam. $4.95.
Almost any spy thriller, properly dust-jacketed, can sell a few thousand copies to the cloak-and-dagger addicts; the truly great ones have an intangible extra quality of atmosphere that broadens their appeal and propels them up the bestseller lists. Funeral in Berlin, if not quite of the master class, is plausible and pleasant. Its special quality is an ironic humor in the midst of triple treachery. Its plot is of more-than-Byzantine intricacy, with a plump and devious British agent, a German Jew masquerading as an ex-Nazi, a Soviet colonel masquerading as a defector, and a smashingly sexy American girl who turns out to be an Israeli agent. The backgrounds, chiefly Berlin and London, are deftly convincing; the derring-do is deadpan and understated; the wit is astringent but genuinely funny.
PRETTY POLLY & OTHER STORIES by Noel Coward. 227 pages. Doubleday. $4.50.
Pretty Polly, the first of these three medium-length tales, is that rare bird, a story that celebrates the joys of breaking taboos without ever once dishing out comeuppance griefs. Mrs. Capper's Birthday is a gentle portrait of a World War II widow who has never quite adjusted to life without "Fred." Me and the Girls is a grim little account of the last reflections of a third-rate homo sexual entertainer dying of cancer. Not the gay Coward of the '40s.
HOTEL by Arthur Hailey. 376 pages. Doubleday. $5.95.
If there were more hotels in the world like the St. Gregory in New Orleans, no one would ever go home again except to leave a change of address. Herbie Chandler, the bell captain, can package and deliver a well-mounted orgy in three hours flat. Ogilvie, the house detective, will accept $25,000 to forget about a hit-and-run accident. There are shortcomings, of course, and once in a while even a mechanical slipup, like the business with the elevator. The assistant general manager "made a mental note" to find out what was wrong as early as page 40. But what with one thing and another (if he wasn't replacing all Gideon Bibles bearing call girls' phone numbers on the frontispiece, he was busy "pensively knotting" a Schiaparelli tie) it gets to be page 352 before he gives the matter his urgent attention--far too late to save the book, much less elevator No. 4, from plunging to fictional disaster, certain bestsellerdom and the special balm only a really big movie sale can bring.
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