Books: Matchless Malice

THE JOHN COLLIER READER by JOHN COLLIER 571 pages. Knopf. $10.

Among the reasons that the shuddery miniatures of British short-storyist John Collier are so satisfactory is that his fine talent is given direction by an equally splendid gift of malice. He does not much like man and his works, and is even less fond of woman and hers. He also has a deep and evident distaste for the dreary stuff that silts up lives and is called Reality. Collier's fictional method is to spit neatly into Reality's eye, and then watch mockingly...

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