Books: Freedom from Thought

THE BACKWARD BRIDE (180 pp.)—Aubrey Menen—Scribner ($2.75).

Uncle Giorgio was the sagest bandit chieftain in Sicily and, as a man of rugged common sense, considerably disturbed about his favorite nephew, Aquila. Palermo University had turned the poor boy into an intellectual. In particular, Aquila had gone overboard for the doctrines in the books of Oxford's Professor Lissom, the great advocate of free love and flexible philosophy. Clearly, the boy's only hope was his beautiful, semiliterate fiancee, Anisetta, who had a down-to-earth determination to marry Aquila and start having twelve children right away.

Uncle...