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Title: Another masterpiece from the other Theroux
Review: A wonderfully excoriating novel from one of America's greatest authors. Ever. Though not as rich and encyclopedic as the better and better known Darconville's Cat, it is honed and tightly written, and at home among the several great American novels written in the last 30 years. Written in three parts, Adultery is constructed like a logical syllogism. This is the framework of its humor: the attempt of an overly intellectual and emotionally hermetic character to work out of the randomness of passion and persona an ornately mad logic. When he is happy (alone), he can paint (how he tells us so!) and he can deride (particularly when his talents are affronted with indifference). But what he cannot do is function in a properly human manner.As to be expected, the quality of the language and the vituperation in which it is often adorned is for its own sake worth the effort (and yes, effort is required) and worthy of the cited Frederick Rolfe.Who? "Do you read?"
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