[.ca] The Headmaster's Dilemma: A Novel (ISBN 0618883428)

The headmaster's tedium:
Louis Auchincloss has been chronicling the antics of wealthy, perpetually dissatisfied WASPs for longer than my mother has been alive. But it seems that he's running out of steam in "The Headmaster's Dilemma," a flaccid novella full of flat, interchangeable characters -- including the titular headmaster. Auchincloss's formal prose is still striking, but it's draped around a thin and aimless little plot that never really gets wrapped up. Michael Sayre is the headmaster of the WASPy prep school, Averhill -- only white Protestant males allowed. But Sayre is pretty clearly (um, yeah) a radical personality, allowing girls and Jews into the school, and allowing his wife to teach a class. Much, I might add, to the chagrin of the devious trustee Donald Spencer, who hates all these changes. Then a student is raped by another student -- until doubt is cast on whether it was consensual or not. Sayre is left teetering between the shadowy truth and the school's reputation, with Donald ready to pounce. Between the displeased trustees and the victim's bombastic mother, he might be driven out of a job. Louis Auchincloss has made a career out of old-styled, mid-twentieth-century novels about the wealthy and aristocratic, sort of like a 20th-century Henry James (minus the clever social commentary). "The Headmaster's Dilemma" seems to be Louis Auchincloss's stab at a "modern" novel -- too bad it's a complete disaster as a novel. The idea of a prep school rape and its possible ramifications is good, and if it were really explored it would be a brilliant one. But Auchincloss just sort of ambles around aimlessly, cramming in character backstory instead of a real plot. And to modernize his distant, formal style, he tries to toss in condoms and raunchy class banter. It's like watching a dignified matron wearing a chartreuse mini. Worst of all, Auchincloss apparently gets tired of the story about a hundred-fifty pages in. So he whips out a quick fix from his literary hat, slaps it onto the story, and dashes off a brief epilogue. It's one of the sloppiest wrap-ups I've ever seen outside of a Laurell K. Hamilton novel. The characters don't help matters either. Auchincloss tries hard to make Sayre an edgy, cool, radical (yet kindly) headmaster -- but frankly it's hard to tell him apart from Donald. Despite their opposing views, they're both stuffy, old-fashioned and have the charisma of a dead crab. Only the louche, aging boytoy Elias actually seems like a real person. "The Headmaster's Dilemma" is one of those novels that seem to have been dashed off during the author's lunch hour. Limp, weak, and wrapped up on a sour note.