Books: Nero's Double

THE PRETENDER—Lion Feuchtwanger—Viking ($2.50).

One way of seeing the present is to look at its reflection in the past. This is Lion Feuchtwanger's method. The Pretender, his third novel of the Roman Empire, is not an antiquarian romance. It cannot be called a strictly historical novel. Readers will not need the reminder from Ecclesiastes that Author Feuchtwanger quotes: "Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us" (1 :10) to realize that much of the action of The Pretender...