WHERE THE BONG THREE GROWS

James Ramsey Ullman has left the Alps for the South Seas and he's crazy about the change. His love letter in the form of a log book, for that's what it amounts to, is full of rainbows and reflections. He sighs over the sights: rumbling reefs, blossoms and breadfruit, sarongs; he meets the people, both natives and sitors. He refers often to Tin Pan Alley cliches: June-Moon-Lagoon, but in the immering Land of Oz you can't get away from 'em: the Pacific is a Paradise; he even enters a Bali H'ai, a ""special island"", a 35 mile pleasure dome where he's guest at a Polynesian wedding feast. He notes the changes- mostly bad- the Jet Age has brought and the past/present temperament clash between East and West. He travels from Hawaii to Guam, Micronesia, Fiji, Samoa; he's aware of anthropology and has an excellent eye. By the time Tahiti nears everything sparkles. He has an affair with one of that isle's oble breed of prostitutes, amusingly described. Often charming, sometimes coy, llman is fond of fanciful details and middlebrow personalia. Past 50 he had set ail to redirect his life. The resultant mixture of picturesque philosophizing and postal card scenery should delight members of his own generation, especially the well- eeled, deck-chair variety. Not surprisingly, the book is a summer publication. But everywhere, says the author, the ghosts of Melville, Maugham and Michener kept haunting im, the ghosts of best-sellers past?