Mauriac and Caviare
MADAME PRUNIER'S La Maison (Longman, 21s.) is a long way above most histories of individual lirms, which are usually resolute pieces of pub- licity in a thin disguise. True, the virtues of the three famous fish restaurants (two in Paris, one in London) are made clearly perceptible, and the lists of famous patrons sometimes become awe- struck catalogues; but the body of the book is an entertaining and often penetrating story. Some- times it is very frank : some earlier incidents, she says, recall Mauriac—Grandmother disinheriting her son out of spite, having found a legal trick by which this might ruin him; two stepsons fighting with fists over a heritage neither would get, while Grandfather lay dying upstairs. Mauriac? Or Zola? Gayer passages are her vain- Search of -all Persia for caviare, and her father's restocking of the French rivers with sturgeon— Which, by the way, it seems could be done in ngland if the Minister of Ag. and Fish. had sense enough to ask her.
RAYMOND POSTGATE
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