ABSTRACT
William Faulkner's new novel, Mosquitoes, is like his first, Soldiers' Pay, clearly an example of the principle of the grotesque in full operation. Faulkner sits in the seat of the scornful with a manner somewhat reminiscent ofJames Joyce, but with an easy languorousness befitting a Mississippian. And as he sits, he does dispatch mayhem, assault and battery upon the bodies of numerous persons with such gracious ease that you almost overlook his savagery. His device is simple in conception, but complicated in practice. The widow Maurier, a shallow lady who yearns after culture and patronizes genius, invites certain diverse people on a yachting party out of New Orleans; among the lot are a sculptor, a fool Englishman, a too-utterly-utter lingerie clerk with DonJuan ambitions, a flapperish niece and Penrodish nephew, a novelist, and, by the casualinvitation of the quite casualniece, a tough young bootlegger and his girlish sweetheart get mixed with the crowd and supply sufficient vulgar contrast.
