BOO KS
721
succumb to psychology, for that would mean to dissolve into pity or
mere comprehension the brilliant gargoyles who comprise her
characters.
Miss Spark
is
an artist of behavior and notation, concerned
not with the depths of her characters but
with
their acted-out
delusions. Above all, she
is
mistress of the art of dialogue. The
basis for this skill is that feline cruelty I have already noted which
permits her to record the talk of characters even after it has gone
over-ripe. Most male v.rriters would turn away in shame and com–
passion, but not Miss Spark.
But
The Bachelors
holds one's attention as more than a virtuoso
performance. The world it presents, in compact miniature,
is
the
wasteland made familiar by modern writing: the wasteland not
expanded into horror but contracted into
ennui.
Miss Spark is an
expert on minor emotional ailments, and knowing how much
misery they cause, she feels no need to trouble with the more
grandiose diseases of the soul. Like Jane Austen, she believes that
an accumulation of venalities makes life odious, and throughout
her novel one hears the steady drip of little meannesses, little deceits.
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I
LAWRENCE DURRELL'S
.~
I
Alexandria Quartet
:1
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I
I
Now in handsome,
J.
~
gift-boxed
ili
~.,;
paperback edition
I
~
~<
I
"One of the major
t
~.<
achievements of fiction
.::,~:!.:'
~
in our time."
.
I
GRANVILLE HICKS, Saturday Review !:
~
Indiv.
Vols.-$1.55
each
.
ill
~~&~~
I
*
~
~
. ... .
At all boohstores
~
~
m
E. P. DUTTON
&
COMPANY
~
~
~
300 Park Avenue South, New York 10, N. Y.
If
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