Spring Sonata is neither a collection of gloomy gynaecological horrors nor a solemn attempt to create a convincing foetal consciousness. Instead it is an exuberant comedy which uses its womb with a view to get a fresh perspective on that old satirical butt, the Jewish family. Our unborn narrator may be unprecedentedly youthful. Naive, however, he is not. (p. 643)

Though even the more sombre chapters are peppered with racy jokes, there are some serious concerns. Buster is a musician, a potential violinist, and he relishes the womb as the ultimate ivory tower. Should the artist, he wonders, try to preserve such isolation and untroubled integrity? These aesthetic reflections, however, and the brief solemnities of Prologue and Epilogue, are firmly subordinated to the central comic theme. Bernice Rubens takes the modern family apart as ruthlessly an anybody in the business. Her distinction is that she makes us laugh while...