Word: auchincloss
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...DARK LADY by Louis Auchincloss 246 pages. Houghton Mifflin...
...episodes and traumas often veer toward the neo-Gothic, with social secretaries replacing spinster govenesses, and gay cousins occupying closets that mad old women once inhabited. Auchincloss also occasionally mires himself in melodramatic ramblings that he evidently perceives as powerful prose ("Orgasm with David was like the raising of a communion cup before an altar that knew no sacrament but love.") but these indulgent tirades are only sporadic; Auchincloss is generally a smooth and vivid writer...
...more often, the author's obvious personal intelligence, coupled with that which he bestows on his characters, including the women, counteracts the nose in the air excesses. The theatrical, artistic and literary allusions (not to mention numerous Harvard Law School alumni) that Auchincloss generously strews throughout the novel usually liven, rather than overburden his dialogue...
OCCASIONALLY, however, the scholarly approach backfires. When David, pondering an affair with his stepmother, mentions Phaedre, Auchincloss is unsubtly and rather stupidly warning the reader that the plot's next twist is unoriginal; footnotes are admirable in a scholarly essay but they don't blend well into the dialogue of a novel. And if the references to Hedda Gabler are supposed to fill vacuums in Elesine's character with delicate but complex psychological motives, Auchincloss is either flattering himself or insulting the reader. As Auchincloss he is really quite admirable. As Ibsen or as Racine, he is, however, disappointing...
...Auchincloss may strut a bit but he does not moralize. He delivers no indictments against aging millionaries who swap loyalty for beauty, and neither lauds nor ridicules youths who seek truth in the trenches of a war. And Elesina, the dark lady with the soaring ambition who taints all those who come close to her, does not pay for her sins, at least not as dearly as her friends, family and lovers pay for her. At the end of the book Elesina is still stunning, still wealthy, still powerful, and still adored. Even the palm fronds would tremble...