At first glance there is no resemblance between "Family Reunion," Ogden Nash's latest collection of verses, and T. S. Eliot's play of some years back, "The Family Reunion." With second sight, however, and something of a shiver, I have apprehended the striking of at least one identical theme: "I regret that before people can be reformed they have to be sinners."

The theme is struck, yes; so hard it never shows its head again. For Nash's development of this theme is another story; a plangent tangent: "And that before you have pianists in the family you have to have beginners."…

Nash's sense of direction is unerring, if unnerving. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," Robert Frost once said, "And sorry I could not travel both∗∗∗." But Nash does travel both. He sets forth blithely, putting his worst foot forward, no excess baggage on his mind or at...