The glorious pool

The fantasy element here is a swimming pool that becomes enchanted, and rejuvenates anyone who uses it. Quite a nice idea that could form the basis of an amusing story.

Unfortunately, this story is of a drunken party that seems endless and pointless. Thorne Smith's books tend to be alcoholic and not strong on plot, but this was published in the year he died, and he wasn't at his best.

It's readable enough that I was able to finish it, and I don't actively dislike it, so I've generously awarded two stars rather than one, but I don't think it was really worth reading.

Some people seem to like it, probably because the writing style can be amusing if you have a compatible sense of humour.

A couple of reviewers seem shocked by the ‘racism' in it, apparently because the protagonist has a Japanese servant who is frequently insulted. I imagine that Smith just wanted a frequently-insulted servant, and thought that making him Japanese would add to the comic effect. I wasn't born in the 1930s, but as far as I know racism hadn't been identified as a Bad Thing in those days. If you choose to read books that old, you shouldn't be surprised by it.

The servant is somewhat over-insulted, but it slides off him like water off a duck's back, and I wouldn't have bothered to mention it except that some readers seem particularly sensitive to it.

The long-suffering servant of foreign origin turns up in more recent fiction than this: offhand, I remember Manuel in the Fawlty Towers television series and Cato in the Pink Panther films. Not very recent, but at least within my lifetime!