SOURCE: "Gradations of Silliness," in The New York Times Book Review, July 16, 1978, pp. 8, 27.

Below, White favorably compares Brophy's "silliness" in Palace without Chairs to Ronald Firbank's literary style, but concludes that "the book doesn't work."

Through the sturdy homespun of English fiction runs a single thread of silver silliness. It is a filament drawn from an art that may seem snobbish and arch but that in fact affects attitudes only for the sake of the imagination. For that reason it must not be regarded as satire, for the foolish, delicate creatures it pokes fun at have, alas, never existed save in the tented gossamer daydreams of a few writers. I'm thinking of a tradition that begins with Pope's Rape of the Lock and extends through Thomas Love Peacock, Oscar Wilde, Ronald Firbank and Henry Green and that ends, implausibly enough, in America with W. M. Spackman and his...