FALSE GODS

The title of Auchincloss's latest fiction is a variation on his Golden Calves (1988), but his moral sensibility remains the same—an insider's understanding of the sins and vanities of upper- class Manhattanites. In these six stories, Auchincloss recasts Greek myth into contemporary fable—none of his errant protagonists are one- dimensional fools or miscreants, but good men led astray by anger, ambition, fashion, and other all-consuming passions. In ``Ares, God of War,'' a Virginia gentleman allows his antebellum sense of honor to degenerate into postwar revenge as an unethical New York lawyer. ``Hermes, God of the Self-Made Man'' is a tale worthy of the best Howells—a successful Yale-educated lawyer during the first half of this century sacrifices love, loyalty, and his identity as a Jew for his ambitions, all of which he justifies by his sense of victimization. In ``Hephaestus, God of Newfangled Things,'' a once- brilliant architect regrets the compromises he made in marriage and career. A crisis of faith underpins ``Polyhymnia, Muse of Sacred Song,'' in which an asexual son of a society matron converts to Catholicism, only to abandon his vocation in a burst of Protestant doubt about Roman dogmatism. ``Charity, Goddess of Our Day'' examines the little-noticed (but perhaps greatest) vanity of the rich, and asks: Charity at what cost? A retired lawyer proposes a morally dubious estates scheme to a wealthy dowager, but is chastened by his own wife. ``Athene, Goddess of the Brave'' strikes a therapeutic note: a grown-up mamma's boy, plagued throughout his life by fears of unmanliness and cowardice, confronts his demons after a particularly humiliating event. In the great world of Auchincloss, the ends never justify the means, and the rich are held to the highest of ethical standards. This may not be a major addition to the author's oeuvre, but it's an always welcome message, delivered with grace and elegance.