Old Boy

By J. D. Reed

HOW TO BECOME A VIRGIN by Quentin Crisp

St. Martin's; 192 pages; $9.95

Britain has two reigning queens: Elizabeth II and Quentin Crisp. Or so Crisp maintained in his autobiography The Naked Civil Servant. In it, the former artist's model and self-described stately homo of England detailed his early life and hard times. The book was surprisingly comic, acidulous and touching, and the TV-film version won awards for Actor John Hurt. It was precisely as the old poseur had figured: "Even if you only lean limply against a wall and you happen to live a very long time, gradually it will begin to give way."

In the sequel, Crisp, 73, starts out to recover the old self painted over by fame and notoriety--to become a virgin again. Here, he shows as much interest in society as sexuality. The English, he says, "want their jobs to be boring so that they can strike." An overnight Americanophile, he finds Los Angeles "a happy Ireland." On a Broadway director: He is the "very model of a modern millionaire; that is to say that he dresses for all occasions like a college student." On gay activists: "Anyone who demands acceptance places himself in the same position as a girl who asks, 'Do you really love me?' Every mature woman knows where that gets her."

In the end, after a four-year flirtation with celebrity, Crisp finds himself once again back on the posing platform for an art class. One student remarks, "You were a nine days' wonder, weren't you?" Bitchy, Crisp acknowledges, but true. Even so, he says, "I have been very lucky. I asked for bread and was given a stone. It turned out to be precious." His book is a bit precious too. But it is also disarming and, in its way, valiant. The reconstructed virgin may be on his way to fulfilling a childhood dream: to become "a kinky" Elizabeth Barrett Browning. --ByJ.D.Reed

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