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PLATZO AND THE MEXICAN PONY RIDER by Theodere Isaac Rubin

PLATZO AND THE MEXICAN PONY RIDER

By

Pub Date: March 22nd, 1965
Publisher: Trident

Dr. Rubin, whose Lisa and David recently made a moving appearance on film, author also of Jordi (1960), applies his empathic insight here to two adolescent boys. His approach is made through what Dr. Bella Van Bark in her introduction terms ""organic writing. "" The reader is included in the subject's stream of consciousness as he puzzles his way toward life, the life of living emotions. Arthur Turbitzky, the ""good"" boy, the zealous student, whose major seiges of feeling circle about his father and prospective girl, conceives of himself as a turbine -- swift, smooth, unbreakable. Yet he must come to grips with his caring about caring or not caring, with ""the delicacy thing"" and the ""middle ache."" His psychic brother, who perhaps tellingly never mentions his own name, wafts about the City, kicking an unconscious alike in the Bowery, picking up a where on 42nd Street, doing a kindness to a runt kid, enjoying a ""free feel"" from a gypsy. As he engages in the life of the senses, his sensitivity emerges. Dr. Van Bark ties up the two case studies in an afterward that analyzes the similarities and divergences, and points out the essential lesson in likeness for all human beings facing existence. Still, primarily of professional interest.