Elegant. Glittering. Intoxicating. But is this account of a costume party at a rich man's house, with overtones of Mozart's Don Giovanni, style over substance? It certainly reeks of snobbery but more of those familiar with high culture than those who have money, the spelling mistakes in Ruth's diary and “Edward’s own taste preferred cars that crouched low as though over dropped handlebars.” (3.16) are sneers at the rich, as is the comment: “The rich have libraries, whereas people like us have books. People like us read books. The rich have them catalogued.” (2.6). The rich host and hostess are fat and ugly. There is a whiff of pretentiousness, as evidenced by the repeated use of the word 'declivity' when another author might say 'dip' or 'dent' and the choice of 'discomfortable' over 'uncomfortable'. Perhaps she is just being precise, but I had the impression that shje was flaunting her vocabulary.
Elegant, glittering, intoxicating and, to that extent, entertaining, but very little happens. There is a ball. The New Year is sung in. Three couples, one married, have sex.
Selected quotes:
- “The neat whisky she had been drinking brought her heart not to her mouth but, much more discomfortably, to the flat part of her chest, to what seemed to be a precise location on top of the flat bone above the breasts.” (1.1)
- “Anna, whose own answer had long been Yes, she could tolerate it, cherished her face without pity or special pleading.” (1.2)
- “‘You’re made of money, aren't you, Rudy?’ ... ‘and you're made of flesh and blood, but you'd squeal if you had to part with any, just the same.’” (1.4)
February 2026; 196 pages
First published in 1964
My Faber paperback was issued in 2020
This review was written by
the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling
and The Kids of GodAlso reviewed in the blog:
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