Books: With Dash & Bitters

THE NEUROTIC’S NOTEBOOK by Mignon McLaughlin. 96 pages. Bobbs-Merrill. $2.50.

“My thoughts, I guess, are bitter,” allows Mignon McLaughlin. “Who but the bitter have thoughts?”

“Mike” McLaughlin’s brand of bitterness is more Angostura than Angst. “What we love about love,” she observes, “is the fever, which marriage puts to bed and cures.” In this book of aphorisms, jotted down in the time she can spare from her job as managing editor of Glamour magazine, Authoress McLaughlin impales her prey with the cool detachment of a lepidopterist. A neurotic, according to Neurotic’s Notebook, “has perfect vision in one eye, but cannot remember which,” and goes through life feeling “like a Christmas shopper who keeps dropping his packages, and it’s raining.” Other glimpses through the rain:

“A virtuous woman is perpetually threatened by a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand.”

“A man wants a woman who can still surprise him, but only when he is in the mood for it.”

“Many wives are forgiven for falling; few for falling ill.”

“Many are saved from sin by being so inept at it.”

“We are always baffled and annoyed by a happy marriage between people we dislike.”

“When a stranger identifies you from a friend’s description, it’s just as well you didn’t hear the description.”

“We are irritated by rascals, intolerant of fools, and prepared to love the rest. But where are they?”

Not in this notebook. According to Author McLaughlin, “Insult, not flattery, is the great aphrodisiac.” It’s good for aphorists too.