THE UNQUIET GRAVE

A pessimistic, earthbound self-analysis, with all the defeatism, skepticism, silliness at times, of immaturity, though Cyril Connolly is 40, an English critic and editor. Here in a word cycle, extensive use of quotations, short essays, he reveals himself as a bitter egotist, cruel, disillusioned, a self-styled Liberal who doesn't believe in Progress. Life is the slime and stench of a cess pool -- everything goes down before his destructive philosophy. He writes well, vividly, but often just for effect, and for the greater part, an unhappy iconoclastic plethora of words.