THE STORY OF MR. NERO

Although utter pointlessness is sometimes fun (and usually a relief) at the picture story level, this works too hard at a gaiety that doesn't come off. The setting is a Greek village. The title character made his living selling drinking-water there. The village established a waterworks. Mr. Nero went out of business. The waterworks broke down. Before Mr. Nero would supply any water he made it clear that the village would have to support him somehow and the solution was to establish a sinecure for him as superintendent of the waterworks, thus allowing him plenty of time to rest or splash in the sea with his carthorse and his boy companion. Mr. Pappas is, according to the jacket, an established cartoonist. His villagers are caricatures and his hand is very sure at grotesque exaggeration which suggests an imbecilic backwardness rather than a strained sense of national heartedness. All of the illustrations are in full color and only the colors seem to capture or convey the sense of sunny Greece of the travel poster image.