Henry de Montherlant, that haughty aristocrat of French letters …, is at his best when he diverts psychological tension into a rather grand, sporty, occasionally risky farce. The hero of The Girls [Les Jeunes Filles] scores a point against the book's major villain (the villain is the institution of marriage) by making himself even more of a fool than he is. (p. 22)

There are many funny scenes in Montherlant's novel; I recommend it for its comedy. Unfortunately, The Girls … has a rather … banal thesis to push. Montherlant is—tirelessly, interminably—out to attack the myth of "the eternal feminine," the idealization of women and marriage, the "love-court" notion of relations between the sexes. The misogynous argument goes something like this. At best, what a man may naturally feel for a woman is a mixture of desire, tenderness, and esteem. But this is not enough for women. Physiologically, intellectually, and...