WHY COME TO SLAKA? By Malcolm...

WHY COME TO SLAKA? By Malcolm Bradbury (Penguin: $7.95, illustrated). This spoof of travel guides describes the imaginary Eastern European country Bradbury created in the novel “Rates of Exchange,” and the author has great fun playing with the fractured English of the various functionaries who extend an official welcome via the state tourist agency, COSMOPLOT. Bradbury does an exceptional job of creating distressing conversations through the lists of phrases in his guide book: (in a restaurant) “May I have a table for two?/ I do not have a reservation/ But there is no-one else here/ Perhaps this will help find one. . . . This table will do very well/ May we have a cloth on it?/ Is there a chair?” The strings of consonants that form the “Slakan translations” suggest that Arte Johnson would be ideal to record the Talking Book version--as Rosemenko from “Laugh-In.”