FOR A COMEDIAN who isn't funny, Steve Martin has made quite a career for himself With the money he's made from Saturday Night Live, movie appearances, and records, you'd think he could finally afford to hire writers to make his material funny, but no--Martin is an individualist, and insists on continuing his frantic pursuit of the banal on his own.

His latest offering to an adoring public, Cruel Shoes--this pissant of a volume--is a milestone of the publishing industry; the perfection of the minimalist approach to writing. We have what is, ostensibly, a book. It's nicely bound, has an attractive cover, and won't fall apart when you pick it up; some high-priced graphic designer took a lot of time designing its contents, its fuzzed-out photos, well-spaced lines and wide margins. The choice of typeface is tasteful.

But the words--those words! There are more of them in a 25* comic book, and funnier, too. For your $6.95, you get 125 pages, many occupied by identical-looking photos, the rest as underpopulated as the Gobi Desert.

Martin can't sustain one narrative idea for more than two of even these decimated pages, anyway. And, unlike his stage appearances, he can't just spreadeagle and say "Excuuuuse me!" when things go wrong. Even so, you had a right to expect more from Martin's book. Maybe one funny piece. Or one funny line.

But his style precludes that. Even when he gets a potentially funny idea, he puts it in his title, warning you, and then decapitates any rising titter by tacking some flat line at a moment when a curious twist or jab might have released a legitimate laugh. Martin bypasses the sublime, hurtles through the ridiculous and lands with a splat in the pitiful.

Here, for example, in its entirety, is "Cruel Shoes," called "the hilarious title piece" in the book-jacket blurb:

Anna knew she had to have some new shoes today, and Carlo had helped her try on every pair in the store. Carlo spoke wearily. "Well that's every pair of shoes in the place."

"Oh, you must have one more pair..."

"No, not one more pair....Well, we have the cruel shoes, but no one would want..."

Anna interrupted, "Oh yes, let me see the cruel shoes!"

Carlo looked incredulous. "No, Anna, you don't understand, you see, the cruel shoes are..."

"Get them!"

Carlo disappeared into the back room for a moment, then returned with an ordinary shoebox. He opened the lid and removed a hideous pair of black and white pumps. But these were not an ordinary pair of black and white pumps; both were left feet, one had a right angle turn with separate compartments that pointed the toes in impossible directions. The other shoe was six inches long and was curved inward like a rocking chair with a vise and razor blades to hold the foot in place.

Carlo spoke hesitantly, "...Now you see why...they're not fit for humans..."

"Put them on me."