"Ten Days in the Hills" zigs and zags through each of these characters' dramedies, full of sound but very little fury, trying to locate its moral center in (besides the idyllic Delphine) Elena, whose outraged sentiments about the war turn out to be a highly sensitized form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. (This is one of the more cynical revelations of the novel.) But the points driven home are pedantic; the characters who espouse them, hollow -- or so farcical that we don't really give a damn about them. One recurring theme, which has the cast moving to a fancier place down the street, is an effort by a group of wealthy Russian financiers to snare Max into remaking Gogol's "Taras Bulba" -- another story about war and religious hatred, the point of which defeats itself. Amid the sparkling talk of the novel (which goes on among opulent settings and fine vegetarian dining) are shaggy dog stories and rehashed film plots and a few political tirades; interestingly, Smiley has given one of the most credible voices on the war to Charlie, whose support-our-troops stance is at least heartfelt. This moment is indicative of one of Smiley's great gifts as a writer, which is her generosity of vision -- she has created a straight man with a thoroughly sympathetic point of view.
Front row at the talkies
Hollywood novel depends on a hyperverbal cast of characters
The blow-by-blow sexual explicitness of "Ten Days in the Hills" enhances the feeling of the French farce; there are even a couple of Russian maids -- Monique and Marya! -- who appear after hours to offer special services. Writing about sex is a slippery slope, of course -- it can fail in a variety of ways, and when it succeeds, the spotlight is inevitably cast upon the author's intent. Certainly Smiley has mastered the technical challenge; for sheer gasps and thrusts and pillow-talk, she rivals John Updike. The question, though, is -- toward what end? We already knew she deserved a place on the field with the pros. Her mastery here of sexual realism gives us a more intricate group portrait -- Zoe shags Simon, Isabel shags Stoney, and Paul seems to be having phone sex -- but it's a portrait whose individual components don't amount to much. "Ten Days in the Hills" is full of endless pages of amusing conversation about myriad subjects, most of which confirms the author's range and intelligence but does little to engage the reader. At one point in the middle of the novel, at the end of a long night of movies and bickering, Paul considers that he is adrift on "a sea of languor with a group of people who on land could be avoided, and were therefore fine enough, but here, on this cruise, were insufferable." Boy, do I know what he means.
Gail Caldwell is chief book critic of the Globe. She can be reached at caldwell@globe.com.