The Pleasures of Reading

One of the minor characters in The Razor's Edge, W. Somerset Maugham's new book (Doubleday Doran, 2.75), will seem real to A.A.s. The shy, poetically inclined daughter of a well-to-do mid-western family, robbed of her husband and small child in a car crash, first seeks relief, then oblivion, in alcohol and opium. She threads her way through the lives of childhood friends until her final release, a corpse drifting in the Mediterranean. Her moments of exhilaration, frantic grappling for help, are skillfully and sympathetically presented. Parallel in time, the main theme of the story follows the search for faith by a war flier who watched others grow rich in lush times, lose their fortunes in the depressions and, with the material things, most of their values. Gradually he develops a strong though inarticulate philosophy based on helping others. The author-narrator presents a number of very human people in a story that merits its place among the current best sellers. Mel C.