THE BREAST

This is no more than a titbit by way of a diversion in the event that you divert easily as once again with downcast eyes Mr. Roth tells the story of David Alan Kepesh, poor nebbish David Alan Kepesh, who having observed the small pink stain on his glans penis suddenly finds himself transformed into a breast. He lies there — in the hospital — watched by doctors and his shrink; visited but unattended to (in the fashion he so excitably desires) by his mistress Claire; thinking, remembering other inabilities — "to laugh at my own expense" — wondering — did he have a case of mammary envy? — brooding about Kafka and his more famous beetle. Mr. Roth has not spent much time on this concupiscent notion — did it deserve any more? 70 pages — no bigger than an A-cup.