His glance was bold and his thick brows were many shades darker than his blonde hair, cropped short and as coarse as the coat of a hastily brushed dog. ‘Her black eyes were long and widely spaced, her mouth, even in repose, was made meaningful by the grace of its shape: the gentle arc of her upper lip dipped in the centre to meet the lovely pillow of her lower lip in a line that had the power of an embrace.’Īnd this is Stash, the great war hero and incomparable polo-player: ‘Valensky had the physical presence of a great athlete who has punished his body without pity throughout his life and the watchful, fighting eyes of a natural predator. Here is a description of her eyes, together with the remaining component of the essential triangle, namely her mouth. Francesca the film star, she of the pure sensuality, is a reluctant spectator at a polo game – reluctant, that is, until she claps eyes on Stash. This, however, is to quibble, because before Stash and Francesca can generate Daisy they first have to meet, and theirs is a meeting of transfigurative force, as of Apollo catching up with Daphne. Not just essential but well-nigh indispensable, one would have thought. Francesca possesses ‘a combination of tranquillity and pure sensuality in the composition of the essential triangle of eyes and mouth’. Francesca Vernon, the film star, is her mother.
Mrs Krantz defines Prince Alexander Vassilivitch Valensky, alias Stash, as ‘the great war hero and incomparable polo-player’. The more detail she piles on, the less clear things become. Unfortunately she has the opposite of a pictorial talent. She pops her valves in the unrelenting effort to bring it all alive. ‘Above all,’ said Conrad, ‘to make you see.’ Mrs Krantz strains every nerve to make you see. In fact, it wouldn’t even be particularly boring if only Mrs Krantz could quell her artistic urge. Princess Daisy is a terrible book only in the sense that it is almost totally inept. If cheap dreams get no worse than this, there will not be much for the cultural analyst to complain about. As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks, but as best-sellers go it argues for a reassuringly robust connection between fiction and the reading public. But I don’t resent the time I have put into reading Princess Daisy. The first time was for a book called Scruples, which I will probably never get around to reading. This is the second time she has been up there.
On the evidence of Princess Daisy, Judith Krantz deserves her high place in the best-seller lists. The average novelist remains unread not because he is bad but because he is flat. To be a really lousy writer takes energy.
0 kommentar(er)
