THE HOUSE OF LIFE
By
Like the crystal drops of a chandelier, this autobiographical memoir has pendant associations and they are strung together as Mr. Praz, a writer, professor, scholar and aesthetic conducts a tour of his house on the Via Giulia in Rome. Paintings, furniture--gleaming with gold and mahogany, object d'art and curios (a coat of arms, a statuette, Neapolitan porcelain or a trompe l'l)-- all occasion this slowmotion montage of memories. There are occasional street scenes or landscapes, vignettes of the members of his family or a servant girl, or of a host of noble and notable lives (, Byron, Walter Peter, Caroline Murat, to mention a random few). Ambient in form and civilized in tone, it has a certain drawings room elegance, and there are 12 pages of photographs, 4 color.