REIGNING PASSIONS

Subtitled ""Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and the Hapsburg Empire,"" this coy journalistic novel is stuffed like a goose with local ""color"" and rhinestone dialogue (""You are the rivers and mountains, the wide steppes, the owl's cry at midnight, wind rustling the birch leaves, soaring eagles and the hungry tigress"") and history-book chronology--all, presumably, to make some tenous affiliation between the rise and fall of the Hapsburg empire and the parallel desuetude of Sacher-Masoch, he of the penchant for being whipped by women in furs. Drawing fully from Sacher-Masoch's novels--even to the point of plot summary--Perutz proves herself an intelligent digester, but her book has the odor of too much library and the vivacity of Mme. Tussaud's. If Sacher-Masoch's own writings haven't up till now added respectability to his sole claim to fame--the original Mr. Owl and Do It Again!--no reason to think Perutz can.