Books: Cocktail Tidbit

HIS OWN MAN (192 pp.)—Mariha Gellhorn—Simon & Schusfer ($3.75).

This is more than a juicy bit of gossip but less than a juicy novel. The story is patterned on real people—to the limited extent that the inhabitants of the London-Paris international sets can be said to be real—and as such, they will be clearly recognizable to at least 247 readers. To outsiders, they will seem moderately entertaining if curiously incomplete. The leading character, Ben Eckhardt, might be described as a Foundation remittance man who lives meagerly but independently in Paris as a perennial student. While he starts out like one of Henry James’s detached drifters, he winds up a little like one of Stendhal’s (or at least De Maupassant’s) involved climbers. What changes him is two women. One is Liz Langham, a lovable mess: dresses atrociously, drinks too much, falls for the most impossible men—but fun. bags of money, and really a dear. The other is Jessica de Camberges, a Franco-American waif who, despite wealth and beauty, is forever wreathed in guilt, and somehow manages to look like a drowned mermaid.

Ben gradually loses his cherished freedom by getting used to the girls’ cars, their wines and their beds. On his 35th birthday “he had a minor problem in that both his ladies wished to honor the day. He solved this by arranging to spend the night of the 9th with Jessica, who could greet the dawn with cries of Happy Birthday, while he would dine on the 10th with Liz who could congratulate him with cake and candles.” But like many a dual philanderer before him. Ben learns that you can’t have your birthday cake and eat it. His comeuppance is sad and ironic: if Author Gellhorn had tried, she might have made it sad and savage. Her style is impeccable, like a well-cut cocktail suit. The trouble is that her characters wear textiles instead of flesh and blood. As with those half-known people one only meets at parties, one learns their vital statistics, their jokes and their scandals, but for the rest one has to invent them oneself.