It is a mystery of literary criticism that Thomas Berger, one of the most ambitious, versatile, and entertaining of contemporary novelists, is hardly ever mentioned in the company of America's major writers. He is a wit, a fine caricaturist, and his prose crackles with Rabelaisian vitality. His phenomenal ear for oddnesses of speech appropriates as readily the grey malapropisms of the silent majority in Reinhart in Love ("I know you'll be taking advantage of the G.I. Bill," says the hero's dad, "full tuition paid and in addition this generous emollient per the month of expenses. A wonderful opportunity, and one never before vouchfaced to the American veteran.") as the winning tall-tale garrulousness of Little Big Man, a savory reminiscence of the Cheyenne Indians in frontier days.

Crazy in Berlin, the first of Berger's 10 novels, ushers us into the jumbled, seedy, conspiratorial atmosphere of the divided German capital...