Mocking Desire

Slovenian Gregor Gradnik, the hero of Jancar's spirited and spiritual first novel in English translation, is a visiting creative writing instructor at a New Orleans university, where he assists his sponsor, Professor Fred Blaumann, in an endless accumulation of data for Blaumann's never-to-be-realized book on the physical and spiritual aspects of melancholy. It's a subject familiar to Gregor, whose frequent dreams of falling he interprets as recollection of the spirit's descent into the material world. Gregor may wish to remain a detached and ironic observer of his own and others' spiritual malaise, but he is as quickly pulled into the lives of the people around him as he is into the violent, sexual frenzy of Mardi Gras. He moves between two social levels: the supposedly decent, outwardly successful people of his academic acquaintance and the group with which he feels more comfortable, the tarnished, sleazy but unpretentious characters who frequent his neighborhood bars in the French Quarter. Infidelities and tortured relationships abound in both strata (Gregor is himself prone to guilt-ridden erotic episodes) as sheer physical desire does battle or merges with the longing for transcendence. A swiftly moving series of scenes, some pathetically comic, some downright tragic, an atmospheric rendering of New Orleans--part Kafka, part Tennessee Williams--and a varied cast of dramatic, if broadly drawn, characters such as Gregor's Cajun neighbor Gumbo, who involves Gregor in his disastrous love life and outlandish business schemes, make this intellectually stimulating novel enjoyable, if not escapist, reading. (Aug.)