PAPERBACKS
By CHARLES SOLOMON

Los Angeles Times   Sunday April 4, 1993
Home Edition
Book Review, Page 15
Type of Material: Column; Book Review


VILLA DES ROSES  by Willem Elsschot, translated from the Dutch
by Paul Vincent (Penguin: $7.95; 140 pp.).  "Villa Des Roses" is the
first of the short novels that helped to establish Willem Elsschot (the
pseudonym of Alfons De Ridder) as one the Netherlands' leading authors.
The Villa is a shabby-genteel pensione in Paris, which Elsschot populates
with appealing eccentrics: the elegant Madame Dumoulin, who never lets
anyone forget she once traveled "in diplomatic circles"; Grunewald, the
Polish rake; the decayed and dotty Madame Gendron. Presiding over this
ragtag menage is the redoubtable Madame Brulot, whose nose "resembled a
Bourbon nose the way back-street mongrels are sometimes reminiscent of
fox terriers." The sardonic humor of this brief novel makes it an
engaging introduction to the author's work.



Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times, 1993.

SOLOMON, CHARLES, PAPERBACKS; ; Home Edition., Los Angeles Times, 04-04-1993, pp 15.