(4 of 5)
The first fun in this sort of riddle is to see how far the similarities go. Sister Walburga and Sister Mildred, the Lady Abbess's co-plotters and hatchet nuns, are obviously Haldeman and Ehrlichman. Peripatetic Sister Gertrude, who phones in nightly from Reykjavik or Mombasa and, in a German accent, recommends the study of Machiavelli, is our very own Secretary of Snake. Sister Felicity seems to be an unstable amalgam of George McGovern and John Dean.
But how about Sister Alexandra? The Lady Abbess is said to be the descendant of 14 generations of English aristocrats. She is austerely beautiful, witty and devilishly good at poetry (when the tapes are transcribed, the documents are dotted with the notation: "Poetry deleted"). Crazed, yes; contemptuous of the rest of humanity, yes. But a parody of Whatchamacallem? Hardly.
The happy fact, of course, is that a send-up as elaborate as this takes on a delight of its own. The close tie to a real-life political absurdity eventually becomes a hindrance, but The Abbess of Crewe is a wonderful joke while it lasts.
THE PIRATE by HAROLD ROBBINS 408 pages. Simon & Schuster. $8.95.
As Harold Robbins likes to point out, there is often more in a Harold Robbins novel than mere venery and violence. He shrewdly blends in topical interest to create a sort of nonfiction fiction. The Carpetbaggers (1961) offered thinly disguised views of Howard Hughes in his prime. The Adventurers (1966) traced jet-set life with the likes of the late Aly Khan. This latest timely extravaganza is a picaresque about a financial wizard who might just be modeled on Abdlatif Al Hamad, the oil sheikdom of Kuwait's money manager.
But with a twist. Robbins' hero, Baydr Al Fay, is really a Jew—a changeling, by Allah! At 40, he is one of the world's richest men, traveling constantly between banking centers to invest Arab oil revenues. Like other Robbins figments, Baydr is also an international satyr whose feats are topped only by those of his insatiable California-born wife. (Yes, Hollywood is at work on the movie.)
There are some insights into the oil cartel's doings; the author leaves no doubt at all that the Arabs are going to buy up the world if they can. Robbins' fans may find that prospect less galvanizing than the usual steamy prose: "Automatically her legs widened to encircle his waist."
THE SECRET GLASS by BERYL BAIN BRIDGE 152 pages. Braziller. $5.95.
This is the at first unpromising story of three English women living in crabbed intimacy in a Liverpool row house: two sisters, Nellie and Margo, plus their brother's daughter Rita, 17, who came into their care after her mother died. Unmarried Nellie's indignation colors their lives. Having sacrificed her own youth to the care of her mother, she holds Marge's brief, unsuccessful fling at marriage in daily contempt. Nellie sews dresses at home. Margo works in a munitions factory and drinks—when she can afford to—because she is fiftyish, fat and frustrated. The time is 1944 and the city is full of American soldiers: "Overpaid," as Rita's father (and everybody else) once said, "oversexed and over here."