Summer Reading

THE DUKE OF GALLODORO (232 pp.)--Aubrey Menen--Scribners ($2.75).

Aubrey Menen is a half-Irish, half-Hindu satirist who likes nothing better than to undo the mental shoelaces of the English. In The Prevalence of Witches, he spoofed the pukka sahib set in India. In The Backward Bride, he showed a good Sicilian lad in the process of being poisoned by the toxic doctrines of an Oxford freethinker. In his latest novel, Author Menen grafts his wit on another culture, lets his English hero bloom like a quirky Renaissance prince.

The place is Gallodoro, a sunny Italian town living on glorious memories and bundles from America. Its inhabitants take a dim view of work and punctuality. Two bells toll the passing hour, but the noisy gabble makes it almost impossible to tell the time. Snoozing and boozing by the Mediterranean, the happy people of Gallodoro do not care what time it is. They are more curious about the town's liveliest legend, the 14th Duke of Gallodoro.

The duke, an Englishman to begin with, long ago acquired his title by the brisk expedient of "buying off ten claimants, three genuine." He is a blithe-spirited cross between Machiavelli and the Medici, and a lover of beauty in the form of small boys; his villa on the hill is staffed by a butler of eleven and a footman of ten. But the duke can remember days when he was better served: "When I came here first, they used to love me for my money. Now, I fear, they love my money."

They get precious little of it, for the duke is a skinflint. After every payday, he cheats his staff out of their wages in an unfriendly game of cards. Forever inviting guests, the duke is an outrageous host. The wine they admire, he knows will not "travel." Wheedled out of him and carted home, it tastes like vinegar. The villa's glittering bathrooms are tiled with condescending instructions: "Press handle down, hold for one minute and release with a slight jerk." The ten-year-old footman has been taught to speed departing guests with the final salute: "You-goddamned-son-of-a-bitch."

The duke is widely believed to be the father of one of Gallodoro's teen-age street urchins. If anything, this belief rather increases the townspeople's affectionate regard for the old reprobate. But a visiting English writer, his northern sense of fair play still intact, determines to force the duke to do right by the lad. Author Menen saves one ironic twist for the last: the boy almost disowns the duke.

Veined with gentle ribaldry and stocked with bizarre supporting characters, The Duke of Gallodoro is a fictional lighter-than-air craft. Except for some overtalky bits, it offers some of the choicest summer reading of the winter.

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