There
is a surprise, too sharp a surprise, at the end of his novel, when
one discovers that the moral is not "do and dare," but "all is
vanity." He is so much and so lusciously at home with cocktails,
legs, limousine parties, stair-sittings, intra-matrimonial
kissings (I mention the most frequent references) that one
distrusts the sudden sarcasm of his finale. It would have been
better almost if he had been a Count de Gramont throughout, for he
has a _flair_ for the surroundings of amorous adventure and
is seldom gross; better still to have seen, as Mrs. Wharton saw,
the picture in perspective from the first. His book will disgust
some and annoy others because its art is muddied by a lingering
naturalism and too highly colored by the predilections of the
artist.
It is a skilful art, nevertheless, and "Cytherea" confirms a
judgment long held that Mr. Hergesheimer is one of the most
skilful craftsmen in English in our day. And this I say in spite
of his obvious failure to grasp inevitably the structure of the
English sentence. He is one of the most honest analysts of a
situation, also; one of the most fearless seekers of motives; one
of the ablest practisers of that transmutation of obscure emotion
into the visible detail of dress, habit, expression, which is the
real technique of the novelist.
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