Antrobus Complete

How the diplomatic corps of the British Foreign Serviceas portrayed in the loosely connected sketches collected in this omnibus volumemanaged to survive until now is one of those mysteries before which the mind boggles. Featuring amiable, deadpan loopy Antrobus as narrator and prototype (""we dips,'' he says in all innocence of himself and his colleagues), these tales of comic woe, small disasters, goofs, gaffes and misadventures from the ridiculous to the absurd depict the vaudeville of a government bureaucracy. How, for example, the dips could bring themselves to accept an invitation from the Kurdish Embassy to a circumcision (smelling salts, stiff upper lip, stiff drink and sheer courage) is still not fully clear. Durrell's aim is to amuse while he instructs, and he succeeds with unfailing good humor. Pieces from this collection appeared over the years in American magazines, but the individual volumes have never been published here. Illustrations. December