THE BOOK OF ELABORATIONS by Oscar Mandel (New Directions: $16.95; 197 pp.)

This is a book of contemplative essays, published at a time when contemplation is sadly out of fashion. These days we must read in order to know , to act , to feel --but reading just to stimulate reflective thinking is as anachronistic as the crossbow. More power to Oscar Mandel for catering to us closet thinkers who find intellectual intercourse a wholly satisfying pleasure.

Having shown appreciation for the gesture, I must be more critical of the product, starting with the title which, I submit, is unnecessarily arch.

Mandel is a poet, playwright and professor of humanities given to introspective discussion, now and in the past (many of these essays having previously appeared in scholarly journals), and he uses the device of quoting his own poetry to trigger an intellectual stream-of-consciousness about the human condition. That sounds pompous, but the work is not. The man thinks logically and writes lucidly. His subject matter, in the main, is not particularly esoteric and he laces enough autobiographical bits into the essays to keep the conversation personal and immediate. But there is no small talk here. He converses on topics that are substantive. The result is rational discourse that exercises the reader’s mental muscles as surely as the rowing machine strains the biceps.

In his opening essay, Mandel begins a discursive conversation about his childhood in Belgium in the decade before Hitler’s rise to power. From this he segues into a monologue about cowardice in child and man, on memory and its treacheries, on the English and their “tribal” characteristics, and more. In another essay, he contemplates with curiosity and wonder (and at great length) the astounding human capacity for being noble and fatuous at the same time. In still another essay, he considers babies, about whom he is not overly fond: on their instinctive aggressiveness (“rapacious consumers”) coupled with extreme helplessness, on the fiction of the angelic child compared to the reality of bed wetting, on the enormous chasm between the unbridled savagery of the infant and civilized behavior. I can’t resist quoting his initial poem in part: “Do not place your trust in babies:/Himmler was one/ . . ./ Next time you bend over a cradle/ Tuck a hatchet in your thoughts.”)

The author uses a love poem, “The Garden,” to air his gentle disapproval of the feminist movement. Other poems trigger other odd views: the nonutility of Judaism, the malevolence of nature, physical exercises and its unpleasantness--but here I must pause, and retract. Such a listing, tagging each noun with a provocative twin (although each expresses the author’s true views) gives undue emphasis to his astringent opinions, conjuring up a vision of a fighter, feet apart, ready to take on all contestants. This is not the case. With fetching humility, Oscar Mandel offers his views as supplications rather than defiances, responses of his own admittedly peculiar personality to experiences and conditioning. He invites his readers to engage in civilized discussion where disagreement need not lead to judgment, disparagement or, God forbid, an aggressive spring to the jugular. I envision him wincing with pain at the very thought of the last.

But for all his demurrers, Mandel has assembled here a collection of soliloquies which gives him absolution, his readers none at all. His charming appeal to our indulgence masks a genial but genuine contempt for those who prefer a world of reality to his world of the mind and literary make-believe. The attitude is particularly disquieting when it embraces his audience; he would like us to regard him well but any reciprocal respect seems hardly worth the effort. Perhaps artless egocentricity is the nature of the beast.

But as cerebral fare, “The Book of Elaborations” is pate de foie gras : elegant but an acquired taste. For those who hunger for such delicacy, the book is nonpareil.