BOOK REVIEW : ‘Lost’: Poignant Variation on a Familiar Theme

Lost in the City of Light by Richard de Combray (Knopf: $17.95; 193 pages.)

The engaging, unlikely hero of this compelling novel of romantic obsession is a 30-year-old American expatriate in Paris. A sculptor blessed with a small trust fund and a gift for the language, he’s managed to support himself by teaching, broadcasting and translating, staying on even though he suspects that his talent will never develop beyond the technical facility that won him modest early recognition.

Though Kevin Korlov conscientiously pays rent on a seedy studio, he finds himself going there less and less, especially during the dank Parisian winter. Draped in dusty sheets, his half-finished works seem to reproach him while he lives his calm, staid life across town, a life that becomes even more austere when his mistress abruptly abandons him for someone more vibrant. She’s a music teacher in Lyon, and when she leaves her pupils, she wants “Liszt! Scriabin! Not some diddle, diddle, diddle on the keyboard of Life itself.� As a consolation prize, she tells Korlov he can keep her elderly dachshund.

By Page 3, it’s clear that De Combray knows exactly how to ring crucial changes upon a conventional theme. His artist-hero is the antithesis of the stereotype; thinking pragmatically, dressing traditionally, uncomfortably aware that “sculptor� hardly describes his primary occupation anymore.

A rare encounter with his art dealer, an international bon vivant , inspires him to experiment with the Minitel hooked up to his telephone, a computer device that not only lets subscribers pay their bills, make reservations and receive weather reports but can also function as an electronic Lonely Hearts club, enabling members to meet and chat on the tiny screen. The art dealer, of course, has already made full use of the gadget to enliven his nights. Alone, bored, and suddenly conscious that he has barely benefited from the wonders Paris has to offer, Kevin Korlov decides to give it a whirl, though his only previous try--so Kevin-like--had been to check his bank balance.

His self-esteem at a particularly low ebb, he signs on as “Invisible Man� and is astonished at the flood of people willing to meet him in the wee hours of the morning. Though he realizes that the Minitel has been usurped by types who might otherwise be soliciting on the Rue St. Denis or Place Pigalle, he’s intrigued in spite of himself, responding to a woman whose pseudonyms are “Treasures of Tenderness� and “Woman Under Silk.� Curtly dismissing him at first, she eventually agrees to meet him at a restaurant in a chic neighborhood.

Glamorous, mysterious, of indeterminate age and vague occupation, she fascinates and eludes him. Each subsequent meeting deepens his attraction. By turns, she appears as a worldly sophisticate, a hoydenish gamin, a primly ladylike ingenue, each costume defining a new character with a dramatic biography to match. When she finally allows him to make love to her, Korlov can hardly believe his good fortune. Fundamentally a sweet and honorable American boy, he tries to extract a declaration of love from her, even allowing himself to dream of marriage, but she evades commitment, defusing his pleading with ever-more elaborate fantasies.

After one passionate, champagne-drenched night, she persuades him to fly off to Morocco. Concealing his misgivings, he agrees, trying valiantly to be the wild, uninhibited lover his fascinating Lea desires. On a drive through the countryside, they have an accident, injuring a child. Ever the chivalrous American, Korlov accepts the blame as driver and is detained by the rural police while his madcap Lea returns to Paris for money to placate the girl’s family and cover the fine. Though the sum represents Korlov’s entire capital, he offers it without hesitation. When she returns with the funds, elegantly dressed, once again the soigne Parisian, it’s only to say goodby.

The adventure is over, but to Korlov’s surprise, the money is replaced in his account, its source unknown, but guessed. Within the space of a few hectic, magical weeks and less than 200 mesmerizing pages, Kevin Korlov has been turned from an innocent abroad into a man of the world. Far more subtle and layered than the familiar plot might suggest, “Lost in the City of Light� is a supremely inventive and poignant variation on an enduring and versatile theme.