CONSTANT READER

There are times when images blow to fluff and comparisons stiffen and shrivel" or you haven't a word left in the mind Dorothy Parker could charm you right out of. Who can resist her kidding, confiding nonchalance as she scuffs up one prominence after another in these pieces — for the most part book reviews — as they appeared under the title-byline in The New Yorker back in her happier days, the late '20's and early '30's. 35 of the original 46 have been chosen and annotated for later comers as she writes with qualified approval on Katherine Mansfield or Hemingway (he "keeps his words to their short path") or Isadora Duncan. But the gorge rises and she is feeling Far From Well in the famous piece in which she pooh-poohs Milne, or others — Elinor Glyn, Emily Post, Margot Asquith. Miss Parker herself appears — playing bridge (you might call it that), coping with foreign language skills, or circulating at social gatherings ranking "somewhere between a sprig of parsley and a single ice-skate." Or just saying rotten. "Rotten is not a nice word for a lady to use. It sounds lousy." ....... Marginalia to be sure — but it will revive that old love affair in a nimbus of nostalgia and a glow of admiration.