Zuleika Dobson

Zuleika Dobson: or An Oxford Love Story by Max Beerbohm
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"From the moment she set foot in Oxford to stay with her grandfather (Warden of Judas), the lovely Zuleika played havoc with the undergraduates -- and with none more than the Duke of Dorset, a character whom Ouida would have been pleased to invent. Max Beerbohm called this delicious novel of his 'An Oxford Love Story', and for fifty years it has delighted successive generations by its elegance and wit."
~~back cover

The book started out well enough. Mr. Beerbohm is nothing if not a master craftsman of the English language, and in the beginning the word play and general delight of a story about incipient young love set in Oxford was enchanting.

Slowly, the story veered into dark passages and byways. The main characters became caricatures of themselves and young lovers everywhere. What should have been a 'sparkling, wicked and delicious story of a femme fatale' and her conquest turned into a battle of wills, arrogance and pride. Which always goeth before a fall. Both professed not to be people who could ever be in love: she fell in and out of love with all the regularity and boredom of the daily 9:15 to Paddington; he held himself above such common and vulgar pastimes. They both fell in love with each other, but not at the same time: if he did, she didn't; if she did, he no longer did. They each worked themselves into grand positions of impossibility, and ...

Well, I'll not spoil it for you. By the time I came to the end of the book, the only hope left was a deus ex machina. And you'll have to read the book yourself to find out if one came ... or not.