Intellectual Booby Trap

The Red Umbrellas, by Kelvin Lindemann. 214 pp. New York: Appleton Century-Crofts. $3.50

The first epidemic of Asiatic cholera to sweep Europe provides the framework for this novel. The setting is Copenhagen, July 17, 1834. The summer atmosphere is pervaded by the unreality of the battlefield or the concentration camp, and the dead and dying of the plague are being carried away in the midst of persisting civilized routines that have become meaningless. The Marchioness Hermione Schnell, aged 80, has remained in her palace, gallantly refusing to follow the aristocracy in its flight to the country, and the story, or more properly the stories, told at her dinner table, celebrate the birthday of her sixty-year-old friend, Professor Charles Iselin. The only other guest is Madame von der Hooglant, whose manor house is near Elsinore.

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Robert Cantwell

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The Red Umbrellas, by Kelvin Lindemann. 214 pp. New York: Appleton Century-Crofts. $3.50

The first epidemic of Asiatic cholera to sweep Europe provides the framework for this novel. The setting is Copenhagen, July 17, 1834. The summer atmosphere is pervaded by the unreality of the battlefield or the concentration camp, and the dead and dying of the plague are being carried away in the midst of persisting civilized routines that have become meaningless. The Marchioness Hermione Schnell, aged 80, has remained in her palace, gallantly refusing to follow the aristocracy in its flight to the country, and the story, or more properly the stories, told at her dinner table, celebrate the birthday of her sixty-year-old friend, Professor Charles Iselin. The only other guest is Madame von der Hooglant, whose manor house is near Elsinore.