Here are four selections that appeared in "Books in Brief."

A Brief History of the Smile
By Angus Trumble

We give it a hundred times a day for as many reasons: the cheesy grin for the camera, the tuck of the cheeks at a joke, the smirk of the skeptic. ''A Brief History of the Smile,'' Angus Trumble's historical study and cultural commentary, considers what the smile reveals about different individuals, eras, cultures and social conventions. Trumble, a curator at Yale University's Center for British Art, considers different manifestations, like the Mona Lisa, the ''hidden smile'' of purdah, and the e-mail symbol : ). Drawing on psychology, physiology and pop culture, he also explores the smile's link to table manners and humanity's longstanding preoccupation with bright white teeth. (He was inspired to write the book after addressing an audience of dentists.) Why do English-speaking people say ''Cheese!'' but Chinese speakers say ''Eggplant''? Why does the Cheshire cat grin? Through rigorous research and unmistakable curiosity, Trumble pushes his subject to unexpectedly rewarding depths. ''If we think of the spontaneous smile of a little child as essentially truthful, we can be equally certain that, at times, the smile of the adult is a kind of mask,'' he remarks. Though it wavers between sincerity and artifice, spontaneity and restraint, the smile's immutable function is to communicate, Trumble suggests.

August 1, 2004.
(c) 2004 The New York Times.

Agnes's Final Afternoon: An Essay on the Work of Milan Kundera
By Francois Ricard

Milan Kundera describes his spare and enigmatic fiction as "holding on to only the essential." In "Agnes's Final Afternoon," an imaginative literary essay, Francois Ricard probes the thematic unities and formal innovations of Kundera's novels to discover this essential. Like Agnes -- a character in Kundera's novel "Immortality" who takes a detour one afternoon to explore the landscape -- Ricard advocates abandoning theory to penetrate "the very core of the oeuvre." Ricard, who teaches French literature at McGill University, argues that Kundera uses a principle of repetition and variation to compose novels that are "always the same and yet always new, always evident and always elusive." Themes of displacement, slowness, resignation and emptiness reappear, but the essence of Kundera's fiction rests in its fusion of form and theme. Traditional linear narration is avoided in favor of "inspirations, bifurcations, distractions." Kundera's novels mimic a stroll, a discursive promenade. Consequently, Ricard proposes, Kundera's central theme -- exile -- is "not so much the thing it investigates as its very method of investigation." Though the arguments are at times rushed, Ricard's writing (ably translated from the French by Aaron Asher) is usually lithe and perceptive. Voluntary exile, Ricard notes with characteristic insight, allows Kundera's characters, like the form of the novel itself, to rediscover its "inherent freedom."

January 4, 2004.
(c) 2004 The New York Times.

The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann's Death in Venice
By Gilbert Adair

As he frolicked on the beach on the Lido of Venice in 1911, the 11-year-old Wladyslaw Moes had no idea he was becoming the object of an obsession -- literal and literary. Thomas Mann, also on vacation, secretly became enraptured with the boy and published "Death in Venice" in 1912. In "The Real Tadzio," the novelist Gilbert Adair supplies the living being who was converted into a literary character. The actual Moes hauntingly complements his fictional counterpart, answering questions we may not have thought to ask (like the reason for his angelic pallor or his privilege to sleep late). Adair's short book pushes deeply into discussions of the historical relativity of beauty and how various writers sought to render homosexuality acceptable in their work. He also offers new angles on Mann's narrative strategies, interpreting the factual liberties as evidence of his genius. More strikingly, as Moes ages beyond blond ringlets into a husband and father persecuted under Communism, he is infused with substance and significance befitting a human being, no longer "obliterated by . . . Mann's half-factual, half-fictional creation."

September 21, 2003.
(c) 2003 The New York Times.

Plausible Portraits of James Lord: With Commentary by the Model
By James Lord

In more than a half-century of writing about and mingling with Europe's artistic and intellectual elite, the art critic James Lord has amassed a rare collection of portraits, rendered by the likes of Picasso and Balthus. In Plausible Portraits OF JAMES LORD: With Commentary by the Model (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25), he pairs these pictures with short, reflective essays in which he explores the dynamic between himself and each artist and offers his perspectives on portraiture and aesthetic truth. Sentimental, humorous, occasionally sardonic, the narratives give an intimate and refreshing glimpse of figures like the poet (and draftsman) Jean Cocteau and the bristly photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Lord uses anecdotes to sustain his interpretations of the artworks, examining with meticulous grace how each portrait's vitality hinges on the relation between artist and model. He imbues this dynamic with metaphysical and redemptive qualities, claiming portraiture offers humans a "gamble against death." Through their flexibility and creative license, the 37 likenesses reveal with stunning clarity how the variables of mimesis diverge with each artist's interpretation of a constant model. Some are roughly executed and others tender; some appear vital and others inert. Giacometti's determined, sculptural vision emerges as a clear contrast to Picasso's swift genius. As Lord writes, "In the image he creates the artist dwells."