A NOBLE PROFESSION, by Pierre Boulle (255 pp.; Vanguard; $3.95), proves once again that French Novelist Boulle owes his fictional allegiance to a one-track mmclhis own. His only weapon is irony; his heroes seem forever doomed to self-deceit, to rationalizing their weaknesses until they seem like virtues. In The Bridge over the River Kivai, a Colonel Blimp hurt his own, his men's and his nation's cause by raising boneheadedness to the level of character. In Face of a Hero, a lawyer transformed personal cowardice into a basis for public esteem. In the present...
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