The author of "Futility! has gore! sophisticate tu his latest novel, a Serdid. sort of sophistication "in Spite of its. scintillating dress. Pandering to the corruptible is his theme and Max Fisher his inaofeueus victim. Poor Max, while "pending heaven" pursues "a Jursgenese career, believing that unless he wins each' successive woman he Iwill be cheated out of what is best id most geaernus in life. Unlike ins model he is arnable to get rid fof them once won, in fact he it father unwilling. to! xemunciate any} fof his illusions in spite of the fact that he fully realizes that they are fora oat. The gey_ nonchalance his tadyoves, "four in all, in ing' happily together "as. one family augmented. by two children fof one. member, wherever Max feels like setting up house-keeping, ates adequately. the amount of Seriousness with which his dcvotions are received. From London to the Riviera, frum the South of France to the North of Africa, Max goes about collecting hi harem "and moving it with his temining, accessories who do. mot even bother about being polite to benefactor, They" quarrel the gramophone while Max pur hhis vague desires about the Connent.
The story is not without humour. There is the summer on the Rivera when the orchard produced figs, The hero, harem, and off-sp2 figs morning, noon, and night because they did not know what else do with them. Sardonically enough a package one day arrives for Max which when opened revealed dried figs from a California admirer.
And then Maxdies, alone. While dying he: watches the ghost of hiniself. pick out his life's importances, thereby. realizing his own futility. Guttersnipes and butchers' shops, collection boxes, a barrel-organ, a God who scratched uneasily. the back of his neck, with the bewilécred remorse of a scullery maid: who had let drop an expensive soup: bowl, soldiers and girls and nows-paper vendors, "I Become a. Woman Again'. by Colonel Barker, his father on-a soap-box, the " Savoy Grill, Sheila, Phyllis, Helen, Oda, Lysstte, Yvette, Mme. Petain,. his wife, satin breeches, plus-fours, Christ, a horse, It is' not until tha oath scene, with, its broken pieces of sltra-modernism, is read, that one fully: understands " just what the rather vaguo.rest of the book intends. to convey—a.c,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.