Consistently Funny
Brady, Susan
make humor an integral part of the novel, he has the right idea. And, integral or not, Amis' witticisms are good and funny. The reader who has had enough of the dark nights of soul and urgent...
...Bates, De Vries, and Amis...
...Beautiful and talented, Germaine has dedicated her life to the pursuit of style, the ritual of pleasure...
...3.95) is more complicated than her first novel, Spinster...
...Incense to Idols is full of the same rich, original language and complicated style as Miss Ashton-Warner's earlier, book...
...The reader who has had enough of the dark nights of soul and urgent social problems in fictional form would be hard put to find better light reading than that offered by Messrs...
...Even when he is not at the top of his form, however, he is an accomplished writer, and A Burnt-Out Case is one of the better books of the current season...
...This is the tale of Querry, a world-famous architect who makes a futile attempt to find anonymity in a leper colony deep in West Africa...
...Not satisfied in her various affairs—with Montigny, a doctor, a dress designer, and a businessman— she is determined to have the local preacher, the Reverend Guymer...
...Their books are consistently funny, in spite of the didactic urge, which varies in intensity from one to the other of these gentlemen, but which is present in all of them...
...3.95...
...Germaine's lust, however, is transformed imperceptibly to spiritual need as she, for the first time in her life, becames aware of the consequences of her behavior...
...But as before, the author presents a first-person stream-of-consciousness narrative, expressing the emotions and experiences of a unique woman—in this case a widow...
...The novel has the virtues and faults of a parable: the story is so synthetic that while the scheme and symbols are interesting, they are never fully convincing...
...Germaine de Beauvais, a pianist, has come to New Zealand to study with the brilliant, notorious Leon Mon-tigny...
...There are moments when the story comes to life but for the most part Greene seems to be too concerned with the dialectic to care much about the rest...
...She is unquestionably a master of the art, and it is a pleasure, though not an easy one, to read her books...
...Briefly Noted A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene (Viking...
...Incense to Idols by Sylvia Ashton-Warner (Simon and Schuster...
Vol. 25 • May 1961 • No. 5
