I Spy

WINTER IN TAOS--Mabel Dodge Luhan --Harcourt, Brace ($2.75).

Eighteen years ago Mabel Ganson Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan, Buffalo socialite and intelligentsiac hostess, tired of Europe,

Manhattan and divorce, bought a ranch house outside of Taos, N. Mex. There she has been, off & on, ever since, and there, while her stolid Indian husband, Antonio Lujan, farms the fields or goes about his slow tribal business, she has written an occasional book--her reminiscences of her late fly-in-the-parlor neighbor, D. H. Lawrence (Lorenzo in Taos), the first volume of a much-advertised autobiography (Intimate Memories). As an interlude in her autobiographical life-work comes this description of how she passes her winter days. Those who enjoy, one way or another. Author Luhan's slapdash mysticism and literary mirror-mooning will not want to miss Winter in Taos.

Author Luhan is a nature-lover: "It is delicious to participate with the cat in the deep within the penetrating domestic quietude of the somnolent interior, yet it is not so precious and uplifting as the tender, wakeful participation with the birds." Her description of Taos scenery and climate, especially from her window, are lingeringly loving. But life in a New Mexican ranch house, however comfortably fixed up, is fraught with more than contemplation. Chatelaine Luhan finds it strenuous: "For every single time I have to attend to anything, whether it's a horse, or a telegram from goodness knows who, or a hole in the wall, or getting the windows washed, it is a distinct effort, like climbing a hill. . . ." When she can occasionally take a day in bed with an incipient cold, it is a great relief. "Nothing to do for a whole day--not to have to cope! I am able to cope, and one has to in this country; but I get tired of it, sometimes. I am not a born coper, like Evangeline; I have had to learn to do it." Only too often she has to ring the buzzer for Mrs. Gonzales or send for Max; it is very wearing. Once they came and told her that Kitty was acting very funny. " 'Oh, where?' I asked plaintively. I didn't want to cope." But she did: she watched Kitty have a fit, finally had to call Max. Kitty died.

On the whole Author Luhan finds her life in Taos very satisfactory. Not a year-round recluse, she often has brilliant friends to stay with her, and then the simple life blossoms out into cocktails, dinner parties, crackling conversation. After such an occasion, she admits with amusement, her Indian husband, who has spent the evening playing solitaire, refers to the salon as "flies buzzing."

The photographs (taken by Author Luhan's friends) with which Winter in Taos is illustrated are fine.

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