Books: Problem Child

LIFE CLASS — Ludwig Bemelmans — Viking ($2.50).

One of the most engaging and original books of reminiscences published last year was Ludwig Bemelmans’ My War with the United States (TIME, July 5, 1937), an account of his experiences as a 19-year-old rookie in U. S. Army camps during the World War. That was his first book for grownups. Before that he had written and illustrated two juveniles, Hansi and The Golden Basket (he has since written two others: The Castle Number Q and Quito Express), but to adults he was known as a Vogue artist and as manager and decorator of Manhattan’s small,expensive Hapsburg restaurant. With his second and much lengthier autobiographical volume, Life Class, Bemelmans again writes as perfect an equivalent of his ingenuously sophisticated drawings as James Thurber does of his.

Bemelmans was a Bavarian problem child. When he failed to pass the first grade of a school for dunces he was sent to the Tyrol to work in the inn of his prosperous Uncle Hans, whom his grandfather, a big brewer, called the “other Lump.” The first Lump was Bemelmans’ father, a Belgian painter who ran away with Ludwig’s French governess. Uncle Hans likewise despaired of little Ludwig, whom he called “Lausbub” (lousy boy, or Katzenjammer kid), sent him to the U. S.

Fired from Manhattan’s Hotel Astor for breaking dishes and from the Hotel McAlpin for daydreaming over an actress to whom he wrote “I think I love you,” Bemelmans used his uncle’s last letter of introduction to get a busboy job in the Hotel “Splendide.”

With the exception of Bemelmans’ studies under a picturesque painter and two trips back home, most of his” story is laid in and behind the swanky dining rooms of the Hotel “Splendide.” As material for a comic opera or a sociological study in snob techniques and de luxe rackets, Bemelmans’ revelations serve equally well.

Only the rare guest gets an individual portrait. Highlights of the book are the portraits of Bemelmans’ coworkers. Strict but sentimental Otto Brauhaus, the “Splendide’s” manager, was an exception to the usual manager “whose face is like a towel on which everyone has wiped his hands.” Otto used to say of his beloved primitive paintings: “Sometimes when I’m alone, I look at them, and they look at me, so brimidif, like this,” and “he would look sideways out of his face, just like his primitives.”

An old waiter named Gustl “suffered from a mild nervous disorder,” which consisted of brushing the back of his hand (become as sensitive as fingertips) against the hips of women guests. Gustl particularly loved Jewish weddings, “there was such wonderful material for his hobby,” so Ludwig, who by then had risen to assistant banquet manager, always gave him “stations with round women, and it was charming to see how he could not do enough for them.”

Despite the dire end predicted for old Gustl by Bemelmans’ boss (who said Bemelmans would end up no better), Gustl retired to a pleasant little cottage in Monte Carlo. “It’s always wonderful.” Bemelmans mused, “when something altogether wrong ends right, without the help of either religion or the police.”