The publicity says it is a book about art snobbery. There is certainly a strong satirical element in which ‘Gallery Eh’, the. Minister of Culture, his trendy art-teaching wife, Doull and the pretentiousness of the art scene from Cubism onwards take a pasting which is very funny as well as serious in intention.

The heartlessness of the Minister and his wife recalls Proust’s expose of the Duc de Guermantes. Doull, seeing Peggy suffering a distressing fit of madness: ‘“This was life” … “Gee, I’m glad I’m seeing this.”’ Yet even Doull is entitled to compassion and is sometimes seen sympathetically. ‘Doull was a terrified human being.’ Albrecht, her husband, is altogether shallower, seeing a man die at the age of 49 after downing a pot of Vodka, he laughs, ‘“Fifty’s such a nicer number, don’t you think.”’ And later he wonders, ‘“How do the poor sick tick. What makes them go?”’

But cruelty and heartlessness is not seen to be a characteristic only of the pretentious pseudo artists and entrepreneurs. Pete Crooke, the genuine young artist, is also a snob who becomes involved with Doull because she represents wealth and success and behaves heartlessly to sexually abandoned, generous Sandra whom he nicknames ‘Rubber’, a transferred epithet because she wears him down like a rubber on the end of a pencil. Rubber too is painted with a strong element of compassion.

The comic, up-and-down love affair between Col and his wife, Peg is presented with a maximum of pathos. It avoids sentimentality by the brilliance of its comic exaggeration and by the fact that it delights in emphasising their saggy-baggy wrinkles, their guts and even their defeats of personality, their varying cowardices.

The prose, with its heavy loading of Oz vernacular has an original flavour, a personal, idiosyncratic voice which flows and glitters with verbal wit but which is also capable on almost every page of genuine poetry. ‘The heart of the family bangs into life, the grateful eye of the family focuses on who hasn’t got a scone, the great animal soul of the family finally settles, rests. A hand reaches for the glimmering chipped teacup. Blue veins in the wrist pulse in it. Are you 60 years old tonight, Col, or only a kid, it’s very hard to tell.’ The whole book is a hymn in praise of booze and food.

The comic invention is brilliant and inspired. Doull has knocked out one of Pete’s eyes with a diamond ring. Col has blinded her in one eye with a knife in retaliation. The reconciliation is the height of absurdity. ‘“I’m sorry I blinded your son, Mr Crooke,” said Doull … “I’m sorry I blinded you, Mrs Wurst-Poque,” replied Col, and they shook hands.’

The plotting is a little slap-dash. We are told that Doull owns Kozminskis, a flash jewellery joint and that she hasn’t got a brass razoo. The home and status of Lady Lucia Hummingbird are left too vague for comfort and throughout there is an uncertainty about the age of characters.

The cartoon illustrations are not as original as the prose, though the colour is splendid on the cover.

My only other complaint is that the book’s binding is shocking. I have read it twice and my copy has completely fallen to bits. That the volume is cheap is no excuse; comparably priced novels from Champion Press are very much more robust.