CARDBOARD CHARACTERS

Press, 7 June 1980, Page 17

CARDBOARD CHARACTERS

Princess Daisy. By Judith Krantz. Angus and Robertson, 1980. 464 pp. $14.95. (Reviewed by Margaret Quigley) The dust-jacket of this length.v novel has on the front an idealised portrait of a synthetic blonde, -on; the inside flap a blurb headed, “The Story of a Princess who loses her Fortune and Finds Herself”,- and on ■ the back a charming plastic photograph of the author. All this cannot but give rise to forebodings in the mind of.the hapless reviewer. The forebodings are all too fully justified by the novel itself. Judith Krantz’s first novel “Scruples” (which mercifully I was not given to review) sold over three million copies and “Princess Daisy” is already billed as the topseller for 1980, with more than $5 million being paid for the publishing and paperback rights. “This romantic dream of a novel,” burbles the dust-jacket, “transports us from the palaces of St. Petersburg to the Venice of today; from the closely guarded enclaves of the Virginia Hunt

Country to the elegance of the gre£t homes of England. The utterly compelling story blends the wonder of . once-upon-a-time with the pulse of-the here-and-now and, in Daisy, creates an ultimate heroine.” The book tells the story of Marguerite Alexandrovn# Valensky. born to the world of the rich and famous, who. -when her fortune is lost, becomes a working woman in the New York advertising world and finally achieves wealth, fame and personal happiness. In telling the story, the author has managed, to include every element which has ever helped to self a popular novel. The characters (especially Daisy’s beautiful, sexy, film star American mother and her hard-> riding, aristocratic Russian father), are all cardboard puppets; the backgrounds are exotic and splendid;., the plot includes sex, suicide, incest, power language drips with abundant adjectives and adverbs, with lush -verbs and extravagant nouns. All in all this is, alas, exactly the sort of novel which will sit at the .top of the bestseller. lists for weeks.