Mr. Argus's Lumpen-aristocrats
WOLFE, ANN F.
Mr. Argus's Lumpen-aristocrats A Rogue with Ease. By M. K. Argus. Harper. 211 pp. $2.75. Reviewed by Ann F Wolfe Contributor, N. Y. "Times Book Review," "Saturday Review" With his beguiling...
...Human nature and Argus realism being what they are, however, the reader will have to settle for the broad hint that love feathered nests all over the lot...
...He called a convention of princes, grand dukes and counts with a view to territorial redistribution and a new deal for the old regime...
...Count Simsky, meanwhile, had been hired by Hollywood's Marvel Studios as an authority on the land of the steppes...
...Argus's right to a place among our top humorists...
...One of the latter got the fake Russian, Count Simsky, mixed up in an unholy scandal, with half the film capital caught in the merry mess...
...Hollywood was also full of fake religions...
...His wit is urbane, often epigrammatic, incisive without cruelty...
...In A Rogue with Ease, he again delves into his rich Slavonic lode and comes up with fresh treasure in the form of a novel...
...Basil, in fine fettle, visited Williamsville, Iowa, where he sealed the romantic pact with his heiress and learned a good deal about the aristocratic preferences of democratic society...
...It is here that Basil meets monocled Count Simsky, fellow impostor and social visionary, a native of Liverpool, Ohio...
...His is an indefinable comic sense that, due at least in part to his Amer-Russian approach, adds a new dimension to literary entertainment...
...The frantic Ohioan summoned his Russian friend as aide...
...At this point, the plot really revs up...
...Atop the bright ore shines young Basil Saratov—Prince Saratov to you—a social climber with high romantic voltage and a System...
...He pointed out the disturbing socio-economic fact—he was an Ohio State man, of course —that on the Eastern seaboard the operational field for Imperial noblemen was overcrowded...
...Now before you jump to the conclusion that this is the happy ending, just remember that "in Russia everything begins from the end...
...Even while he spoofs sham, he is wistful about its motivations...
...The convention, held in Chicago, was a social and professional success...
...The Count's Russian was limited to "da," but he was go-getting, efficient and master of a wondrous White Guard accent...
...Argus, whether characterizing Muscovite or Iowan, is basically concerned with the human condition...
...The System is dedicated to the venerable principle that marrying money beats working...
...Reviewed by Ann F Wolfe Contributor, N. Y. "Times Book Review," "Saturday Review" With his beguiling Moscow-on-the-Hudson, a few years back, M. K. Argus mined a new vein of American regional writing: the New York of his Russian compatriots...
...It would be pleasant to report that virtue finally triumphed...
...A Rogue with Ease confirms Mr...
...As a reasonable facsimile of an exiled Tsarist nobleman, Basil was soon on the way to moneyed betrothal...
...Don't be too hard on this alumnus of revolution and an East Side toothpick factory...
...In the lunatic '20s, ?migr?s from Omsk and Odessa found the going pretty rough here unless they had titles...
...The madhouse called Hollywood was full of Russians, ci-devant, quasi and even, as in the case of Maureen O'Sullivan, bona fide...
...In any case, the title was integral to The System, and The System involved society weddings and bogus Imperial heirlooms...
...In some faint supersonic way, his play of mind suggests E. B. White's...
...There is actually no resemblance...
Vol. 37 • March 1954 • No. 10
