LUDIC LOG

Those who say the "little novel" of domestic life died with its prewar practitioners would be well advised to thumb through the personnel files in their employer's human resources department.

All the elements of the little novel are there, in a format that moves sleekly through time, setting up proarietic sequences that would make Balzac blush. The family drama combines with a sort of workplace gothic that is incredibly compelling -- no less so because it is real. Parents die; children are born; spouses are acquired or shed; people fulfill their dreams of travel, of purchase. An eternal war takes place between management and labor. Men fight, drink, screw up on the job; women gossip, tend to their children, sink into depression. Injustices are done, longings are laid bare, lies are told which haunt the teller.

And behind it all, lurking like a malignant spider or a brilliant cancer, are the owners; the tale is told through their eyes, and only one question drives their narrative: what will this cost me? It's quite fascinating. In the whole of the world text, there is nothing like it. The little novel is not dead; it's just being writ by different hands.