Momo is so strenuously, so determinedly heartwarming, that it seems in constant danger of blowing a fuse. As for the orphan boy Momo, he's a winsome tyke if ever there was one, a veritable Little Lord Fauntleroy of the gutter, and yet I must admit I managed to remain completely inured to his charms. In fact, with each new ingenuous pronouncement upon the human condition that the young philosophe made—"I believe that if you want to live, you should start very young because later on you're sure to depreciate and no one will make you any presents"—I found myself growling in belatedly-recognized sympathy with that childophobe, W. C. Fields.

Momo inverses the usual literary relationship: it is a novel by a "child" written for "adults." (p. 34)

Ajar can't seem to decide whether he wants Momo to talk like an illiterate or a college professor. His confusion...