I had never heard of Roger Lewinter, but I bought this book because it was published by New Directions (which in my experience issues a higher percentage of rewarding books than do most publishers) and because I found the title intriguing -- THE ATTRACTION OF THINGS: FRAGMENTS OF AN OBLIQUE LIFE. The title may be the best thing about the book.

THE ATTRACTION OF THINGS is an unusual memoir. Lewinter (b. 1941) is a novelist, an editor and translator, and the author of several scholarly works. In a Prelude of sorts, he writes that the book "is the story of a being who lets himself go toward what attracts him, toward what he attracts -- beings, works, things * * *." The book consists of six chapters about periods, and fragments, of Lewinter's life between August 1980 and May 1983. They are inter-related, often returning to the same beings, works, or things and noting connections (actual or sensed) among them. The book is written with lengthy, convoluted, labyrinthine sentences. (As an example, I quote one of the book's shorter sentences in the comment to this review.)

Lewinter meanders discursively from topic to topic, person to person, thing to thing. An idea of the eclectic and almost random, or "oblique", nature of the book might be gleaned from this précis of the principal topics of each of the six chapters and their titles:

1. "The Red G&T from Saint Petersburg" -- George Groddeck / Search in flea markets for G&T gramophone records from 1902-1907 / Moriaud / The "Virgin of the Rocks" / Svetlana.

2. "The Find of a Life" -- Friends Michèle and Jean-François / Death of his mother from tongue cancer / George Groddeck / Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" / Four crates of G&T gramophone recordings / Searching for a Kashmir shawl.

3. "Duino" -- Rilke.

4. La Argentina" -- La Argentina / Yoga and the lotus position / Groddeck / A homosexual relationship / A production of Sophocles' "Antigone" / Rosa Ponselle.

5. "Alexandre Brongniart" -- The last years and death of his father / A Sèvres bisque, Alexandre Brongniart, by Houdon / A collection of LP opera recordings and the family Sunday ritual of listening to them.

6. Another Kashmir shawl.

THE ATTRACTION OF THINGS was originally written in French and published in 1985 under the title, "L'attrait des choses". This volume consists of an English translation by Rachel Careau (a rather challenging undertaking, no doubt) followed by the original French text. It is a rather slender offering. Perhaps the book will prove to be a new wave in literary memoirs, but I rather hope not.