Books: Talking Clocks

PICTURES FROM AN INSTITUTION (277 pp.) —Randall Jarrell—Knopf ($3.50).

Compliments from fellow writers are piled like clover on the jacket of Poet Randall Jarrell's first novel, Pictures from an Institution. "While busy at his mighty task, how gay he seems; how gay we are as we look on! How can we ever thank him?" asks Poetess Marianne Moore. "Immense fun to read," says Critic David Daiches. "A sparkling, damnably clever, wicked piece of work." "I am starting a fan club," bubbles Richard P. (7½ Cents) Bissell.

What Author Jarrell has done is to set up...