Books: Decline & Fall

MY FATHERS AND I (253 pp.)—Eric Linklater—Harcourt, Brace ($3.95).

British Novelist Eric Linklater (Juan in America, Laxdale Hall) wore the kilt of the gallant Black Watch in World War I and has laughed in the face of reality ever since. His new novel, My Fathers and I, is an escape into the past. It is told by a degenerate descendant of proud ancestors who were greatly absurd but greatly revered. The narrator is Edward G. (for Gratiano) Vanbrugh, a seedily broke antique dealer in a shabby English provincial town. His principal stock, symbolically enough,...