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| | TIME.com: Mixed Fiction -- Oct. 11, 1954 -- Page 1 |
 | | MADAME DE, by Louise de Vilmorin, translated by Duff Cooper (54 pp.; Messner; $2.50), is a literary visit from the frail, salon-bred French writer whose fans think that she may succeed to Colette's place as first lady of French letters. |
 | | Author de Vilmorin has a wonderful flair for wacky as well as genuine elegance, and writes with a kind of passionate superficiality rarely attempted since the courtly novel died with the French court. |
 | | Madame De, already known to some U.S. moviegoers in an excellent screen version (TIME, July 26), is a high-society triangle in which a pair of diamond earrings wanders from husband to wife to jeweler to mistress to lover to wife and back to husband, evoking tinkles of high comedy and muted tragedy on the way. |
| www.time.com /time/archive/preview/0,10987,936483,00.html (611 words) |
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