Manhattan Monologues

Reading this book brought back to mind a certain little poem I read many years ago, and haven’t forgotten (or, rather, whose concept I never forgot, and whose actual wording I Googled):

You praise the firm restraint with which they write -
I'm with you there, of course:
They use the snaffle and the surb all right,
But where's the bloody horse?

Auchincloss is clearly a master of prose; a master of quiet, well-restrained, appropriately bridled prose. Yet it did nothing for me, in the end, and the pairing of such polite prose with such polite people in such a polite society had me, if anything, a tad bored. It was like nothing so much as a society dinner party—some insight into people, some juicy gossip, but really nothing, narrative-wise, that I couldn’t pick up in a volume of Who’s Who. So, if you happen to bump into Auchincloss next time you visit the club—and he seems like the sort of man who would be there, sitting in the corner, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar—tell him, next time, not to forget the bloody horse.