Humorous Novel About Student

As Soft A Spring, by R. Casey (Paul's Book Arcade 18/-).

R. Casey, about whom both dust-jacket and publisher's handout are uninformative, has produced a strangely moving first novel. The plot appears slightly contrived, some of the characters are loosely sketched, and the dialogue verges on melodrama at times, but the author's rather dark sense of humour retrieves this book.

Some of the sequences are very funny indeed. The hero, a sort of cross between Lucky Jim and Billy Liar, is a bumbling young New Zealand university student who compensates for his inadequacies by building fantasies about himself for other people.

Casey's descriptions of his hero's relations with other people, particularly the shy young nurse with whom he is in love, are not always as convincing, but the problems he faces are ones which a lot of students will be able to identify. He manages to combine high comedy and tragedy with some notable success.

The New Zealand setting rings true. Here's hoping Mr. Casey plans to break out of his anonymity soon with another novel. — R.G.L.