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Title: Tales of Manhattan by Louis Auchincloss ISBN: 0-395-07368-5 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: June, 1967 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $4.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: A New York long departed
Comment: Tales of Manhattan is an enjoyable, if sometimes anachronistic collection of stories of life (mainly of the upper class) in Manhattan in the early 1960s and earlier. The book is divided into three sections: Memories of an Auctioneer, Arnold & Degener, One Chase Manhattan Plaza and The Matrons. Each section contains several stories, each related to a common theme. The first part deals with the recollections of an auctioneer who works for one of the city's most prestigious auction houses, probably based on Christie's or Sotheby's. The title of the second section refers to a law firm where the senior partners have all sorts of hidden suspicions and resentments towards one another. The final third refers to the wealthy older women who planned much of the social life for the city's upper class. I read this book partly as a historical and sociological study, but found it quite enjoyable as well. Auchincloss was an attorney in New York, so he no doubt had personal experience of many of the things of which he wrote. The book sort of grew on me as I read it. I'm not sure if this is because I liked the latter sections better than the earlier or because it took me a while to get in tune with the book's style. It is impossible to forget, when reading Tales of Manhattan, that you are reading about another time. This may be partly due to Auchincloss's use of language, which contains some slang and expressions that are rarely used today. It is also, of course, because he is describing the declining years of New York's European style social scene, comparable to the sort encountered in novels by Jane Austen and Edith Wharton. One of the stories, in fact, The Landmarker, deals with the very subject of an older man lamenting the end of the era in which he grew up. Along with the main focus on the rigidity and formality of the era's social life, the book delves into other topics, such as the conflict between the artistic temperament and practical life. Several stories deal rather specifically, and with admirable insight, into the predicament faced by people whose romantic or artistic ideals do not fit with their social environment. The section on the law firm gives the reader a glimpse into a corporate world, already fading when the book was written, presided over by the severe portraits of deceased, but still revered, partners. It is perhaps the most serious test of a book if it still has relevance several decades after it is written. Tales of Manhattan, while in some ways dated, has enough originality and enduring value to make it worthwhile for contemporary readers, including those without a particular interest in the period in which the book is set.

Rating: 5
Summary: Sophisticated post-war Weltschmerz
Comment: Having recently 'discovered' Auchincloss, I am currently working my way through his opus, and thoroughly enjoyed this well-mannered and yet devastatingly honest collection of stories. Auchincloss is a gentle, observant man with a fine sense of the ambiguous -- he is more interested in exploring inconsistencies and differences of perspective than in creating 'good' or 'bad' characters -- very refreshing in this 15-minute age.