Rambling through a novel of Ludwig Bemelmans is like eating in an expensive Viennese tea shop. The descriptions are like cups of rich chocolate, topped with heavy whipped cream; the plot is as easy to get through as the flaky Austrian pastry; but later on the gourmet may feel that the frothy repast had a residue that is unexpectedly heavy. "Dirty Eddie" has many of the characteristics of its predecessors: the sensuous surface of champagne, nylons, and silly, suggestive talk remains as lush as ever, and if there is any change from the old Bemelmans, it is that he is more bitter, more satiric, and quite a bit less kindly toward the decadence that he is writing about.

This is a book about Hollywood, which for an ordinary human being, or even for a pig, is a strange and terrifying place. The tone of disillusion and disgust very likely comes from Bemelmans' discovery that, aside from the glittering surface, Hollywood is nothing like prewar Paris, where he delighted in being gay rather than sarcastic, and sentimental rather than cynical. We see the giant Olympia Studio, where no man is happy, and the road to success is to keep one's month tightly shut and do no work. But Bemelmans makes no judgements; instead he tells the story of the production of a ridiculous picture with grim amusement.

Here everyone is in the tentacles of Hollywood, and even the president of the studio is wretched, for his dirty old uncle bullies him and interferes with his love life. All the characters are seen as poor, pathetic creatures, and Bemelmans sets forth his point of view concisely near the end of the book: "God!... You have to be tolerant in this world, but out here you have to be especially tolerant or you choke with hate. Gee, it's easy to hate these guys, if you let yourself. They're so awful. Every one a heel, everyone a procurer, every one a talker. Look at them." Bemelmans remains tolerant often with what must be a superhuman effort, and the book keeps a delicate balance between friendly sympathy and sharp satire.

As for Dirty Eddie himself, he is an intelligent black pig who grows progressively smaller in the film of which he is the star. That is because the picture is filmed backwards, beginning with the end, and the pig is growing all the time. Actually Eddie is not very important, and does not make his appearance until the last third of the book. Bemelmans' rich sweetness carries the story along without the pig, winning the reader through a kind of hypnotic mastery. Witness the very beginning of "Dirty Eddie": "'Believe me," she said, "I know how to do it. Lean forward, darling.'" A few lines later you are disappointed, and yet delighted, to discover that she is curing him of hiecoughs.