Word: crichton
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...dozen noteworthy first novels published this summer, four are especially distinguished. Robert Crichton's The Secret of Santa Vittoria, one of the funniest war novels since Mister Roberts, describes the ordeal of an Italian village that during World War II attempted to hide 1,320,000 bottles of vermouth from the German army. Beggars on Horseback, by James Mossman, is a grisly, giggly satire about a mythical Middle Eastern kingdom where the British muddle through until they fizzle out. Trust, by Cynthia Ozick, is a massive (568 pages) and almost continuously impressive attempt to reconstruct the near-religious experience...
...list does not include another Remembrance of Things Past or even a Gone With the Wind-speaking of first novels-but it does present more than a dozen books of rippling readability, and several that promise to become bestsellers. Above all, it introduces four new novelists-Robert Crichton, James Mossman, Cynthia Ozick, Sylvia Wilkinson-whose literary skill and temperamental resonance argue remarkable things to come...
...Secret of Santo Vittoria (Simon & Schuster) by Robert Crichton, 41, a World War II combat veteran, is very likely the funniest war novel since Mister Roberts. The Troy of his hilarious Iliad is a wine-producing village in southern Italy, a town so poor in everything, including fertilizer, that its inhabitants stalk oxen with a broom and a pan. The Hector of the tale is the village mayor, a paisano whose native cunning has been reinforced by the study of Machiavelli. The Agamemnon of the story is a German captain assigned to rob the village of its only precious possession...
...quarrels with his neighbor he adds injury to insult by letting his donkey eat the neighbor's grass. In the belly-busting climax of this humoric epic, the Germans ignominiously wrest defeat from the jaws of victory, and the villagers preserve their vino for the postwar American market. Crichton tells his story with grace, pace, warmth and a wonderful free-reeling wit that skips among the vineyards like an inebriated billygoat. The book should make a dandy movie...
...Burchell and Pat Davidson led the Radcliffe contingent in the four-school swimming meet. Miss Burchell was runner-up in the 50-yd. butterfly and the 100-yd. individual medley, and Miss Davidson took the dive, downing the second place Wellesley entrant 100.4 to 89.1 Kim Crichton also took a second place in the 50-yd. freestyle...