In France, where the intelligent novel goes far, these books about women (women in love) [Montherlant's Les Jeunes Filles] have been widely enough read to rouse excitement and anger. Montherlant has been, I understand, accused of indecency on a rather subtle plane. He gets nearer the nerve of a matter—in fact, "our women"—than people, even in France, like. Now that translation is to widen his English public, what, I wonder, will be the reactions to him here? Very mixed: in some quarters, possibly, hostile. He is likely to displease women, to unnerve men. He has a ruthless touch on a good many illusions. But his drive, his clarity, his magnetic style are unlikely to be forgotten….

Les Jeunes Filles is a miracle of construction. Letters from and to women, an extract from a matrimonial gazette, leaves from notebooks, a cutting from one of Costals' articles are...