Gaul in Graveclothes

MODERN FRENCH SHORT STORIES (182 pp.)--Edited by John Lehmann--New Directions ($3).

Editor Lehmann believes that these 14 stories (which first appeared in his British little-magazine New Writing) prove "the dominating richness and vitality of French literature among the literatures of Europe." But U.S. readers are likely to feel that most of the richness is stylistic sheen, and the vitality only skin-deep.

In Letter to a Hostage, Airman Antoine de St. Exupery (missing in action, 1944) feels "so weary of controversy, of the opinionated, of fanaticism" that only one small ray of comfort remains in his heart--a memory of times when he exchanged smiles with people. In A Man and a Woman, Louis Guilloux described a quarrel between a businessman and his wife--a quarrel which is hair-raising precisely because it is caused by nothing but sheer boredom. In his two contributions, Jean-Paul Sartre, France's latest light-o'-letters, fills his fountain pen with embalming fluid and blandly describes 1) how reasonable it is these days for a woman to be madly in love with a lunatic, 2) how inevitable it is that a man will get killed if you try to save his life.

This pessimistic view of contemporary life is even further pointed up by the fact that the other writers in this book deliberately turn their backs on it. Andre Gide and Noel Devaulx hide their talented heads in reminiscences of life before World War I. Nature-Boys Jean Giono and Andre Chamson wallow in a woody dreamland of hefty peasants and prime wine. Only Jean Cassou gives an impression of both vitality and veracity. His macabre story is an up-to-date version of Romeo & Juliet, in which Juliet ("a nice, retiring person . . . the sort who hates being conspicuous") is put to shame by the amorous frenzy of Romeo. This tale teems with the wit for which France was once famed, and brings a genuine touch of comic relief to a world of despair.

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