Books: Jive Among the Jumbles

CITY OF SPADES (255 pp.)—Colin MacInnes—Macmillan ($3.75).

"You're a Jumble, man."

This phrase keynotes the bright dialogue of this bright new novel. What is a Jumble? The term is a kind of Joycean jive for Johnbull, blurred by soft voices and subtle minds to a new sound. The word is used by London's fast-growing population of West Indian and African Negroes. In their eyes, the whites whose town they have invaded are confused and confusing, square as tea chests, Jumbled in their thoughts about Spades. And Spades, of course, are the Negroes as they describe themselves—hip in their bright night world, realistically calling...