Books: The French & Everyone

THE HORRORS OF LOVE by Jean Dutourd. 665 pages. Doubleday. $6.95.

Though abused tourists may think otherwise, the country about which Frenchmen are most venomous is France. It is virtually the one Gallic tradition that Jean Dutourd truly respects. Both in fiction (A Dog's Head) and in nonfiction (The Taxis of the Marne), he has shown himself an accomplished satirical duelist and a sardonic chronicler of French middle-class life.

The Horrors of Love is an often ridiculous, sometimes funny tale of a middle-aged member of the French Chamber of Deputies who becomes tragically involved with his young mistress. At first glance, the story seems to be as obviously and simply French as a pair of lovers sneaking off to a bedsitter in the Square St.-Lambert. Yet it is not only the Gallic spirit that intrigues Dutourd, but the human spirit as well.

The rambling story unfolds in a dialogue between Dutourd and a friend. As they stroll in Paris, they discuss the unhappy case of Edouard Roberti, the 52-year-old Deputy who has been sent to prison for killing his mistress' brother. It is apparent that Roberti, a respectable, loving father and husband, was all too ordinary—not so much evil as weak, not so much stupid as pitifully vain. By way of examining how it was that such a commonplace, decent man could become trapped in a senseless and sordid mess, Dutourd's dialogue ranges through all sorts of philosophical detours. Courage and cowardice, honor and honesty, art, letters, manners, politics and morals become way stations as the two friends chat and argue.

"Women love to be occupied," says one, "even if the occupation leads nowhere. The inactivity of the male exasperates them." Or: "A man is courageous when he has heart. Women are courageous when they have no heart." Or: "God is disconcerting and facetious. It is the Devil who is solemn."

At times, Dutourd himself turns too solemn. But most of the time, the book achieves a kind of cynical grandeur in an ambitious, unconstrained and meticulous dissection of the French character that evokes Montaigne. And oddly enough, with their quivering nerve endings exposed, the French turn out to be very much like everybody else—only more so.