NONFICTION - Nov. 27, 1994

THE STYLE’S THE MAN: Reflections on Proust, Fitzgerald, Wharton, Vidal, and Others by Louis Auchincloss (Charles Scribner’s Sons: $21; 177 pp.). Louis Auchincloss had chosen an appropriate title for his most recent collection of critical essays; in most of these 18 articles he’s interested in divining some connection between a writer and his or her art, the attitude a creator takes toward characters or a work’s ability to shed light on its author. Reconsidering “Remembrance of Things Past,” Auchincloss wonders why Proust hides his narrator’s homosexuality while making it obvious in most other characters; musing on Congreve, he finds the playwright surprisingly tolerant of bad behavior, heroes and villains alike seeming to “strut with astounding arrogance around a sleazy barnyard.” These points are minor but interesting, and they fit the small canvas Auchincloss generally works in this volume, seeking out literary nooks and crannies that bear further exploration. Often, however, Auchincloss draws too broadly, taking on entire careers--those of William Gaddis, Marguerite Yourcenar--and says little worth preserving. He deals with Fitzgerald and “The Great Gatsby” in seven paragraphs, for example, and although the sketch isn’t exactly trivial, it hardly warrants mention in the book’s subtitle. The best essays in “The Style’s the Man” concern lesser-known work where Auchincloss doesn’t risk beating a dead horse, such as “Henry James: The Theatre Years” and especially “The Lyttleton--Hart-Davis Letters.” In the latter Auchincloss appraises the correspondence between a retired Eton house-master and a former student turned book-editor, and it’s a graceful celebration of a thoughtful, considered intimacy that seems destined for extinction in this virtual Electronic Age.