Were there a group libel law in force, it could be invoked by the Irish to put Mr. T. H. White in jail for several thousand years. In "The Elephant and the Kangaroo," Mr. White's new novel, there is enough fun poked at Eire and her inhabitants to fill an indictment longer than the St. Patrick's day parade on a mild March 17. Nothing is spared, not even Irish whiskey, not even Irish piety. Coming from an Englishman it is the sign and seal of social success.

[This is] a story which, for all the author's usual wit and skill at narrative, is pointless and rather dull. A dreamy second-rate English writer floating out of Ireland on a Dutch barn is perhaps a symbol of England herself, forced from the island after 400 years by a flood of history. The aroused Irish, hurling anathema and artillery at him, are no doubt those rebels who tried so futilely to accomplish the expulsion in generation after generation. The long, pseudo-Rabelaisian catalogues of Irish foolishness and stupidity probably represent the final benediction of a retiring conqueror. They speak well for the trouble the Irish have given their landlords.

It is natural to wonder why Mr. White felt impelled to indulge in his aimless, broad burlesque. It lacks his fine touch of fancy and his hitherto faultless taste. Its humor is slapstick, farcical, at times unkind and often without focus. His "aborigines" of Kildare are neither amusing nor purposeful. For such a fine and facile talent as Mr. White possesses there are surely more efficacious themes; even Mikey O'Callaghan could do no worse than the plot of "The Elephant and the Kangaroo." Mr. White lost this one in the first inning.