Books: Rousseau Redux THE NEW CONFESSIONS

(2 of 2)

The making of Confessions: Part I is a splendid set piece within the novel. Over budget. Behind schedule. An actor's forgotten mother located and brought onto the set to shock her son into the horrified reaction the director seeks. A baby nearly dying of chills as Todd refines upon the perfection of a scene. A charming passage about young women picking cherries that turns out to be the high point of the movie. A rather exhilarating cast of show-biz types who figure in the production and usually take the director for the wrong kind of ride. It is zestful, sure-handed scenemaking; Todd himself would approve of his creator.

In the succeeding decades, Todd's fate resembles that of many European artists: a flight to California just ahead of the Nazis, bad -- though well- paid -- times in Hollywood, a ruinous tangle with the House Un-American Activities Committee (Todd has no political commitments whatever). Several of the cinema folk who surrounded Todd back in Berlin during the silent days turn up again, usually running true to bad form.

But some of the gusto is missing. As his hero ages, the author's energy flags. Promising situations are brought up only to be dropped, and the tour of the century ends rather limply. Still, Boyd, 36, a skilled and productive novelist (A Good Man in Africa, Stars and Bars), has succeeded in no small feat: writing a portrait of an artist that is both entertaining and intellectually engaging.