Sacred Cows As Hamburger

By Stefan Kanfer

MODERN MANNERS: AN ETIQUETTE BOOK FOR RUDE PEOPLE

by P.J. O'Rourke; Atlantic Monthly Press; 281 pages; $16.95

According to Balzac, "Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation." According to P.J. O'Rourke, "Manners are a way to screw people over without their knowing it." Although 150 years separate the master novelist from the Rolling Stone nihilist, their contempt for social artifice is identical. The difference, of course, is that one of them has a savage comic flair. The other one wrote in French.

Surrounded by sacred cows, O'Rourke lives on a diet of hamburger. He considers it bad form to criticize one society when, with very little effort, two can be skewered: "The same polite behavior that makes you a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of Kensington is equally appropriate among the Mud People of the fierce Orokaiva tribe of Papua New Guinea -- if you have a gun." Closer to home, he examines every appalling aspect of modern life. Under the heading of "Rebuffs," he notes that "at one time the 'cut direct' was delivered by looking right at a person and not acknowledging his acquaintance or even his existence. This is no longer done. It has been replaced by the lawsuit." The subject of drinking inspires a classic paradox: "Never refuse wine. It is an odd but universally held opinion that anyone who doesn't drink must be an alcoholic."

Sometimes O'Rourke adopts an air of bemusement, reminiscent of Robert Benchley in mid-quandary. But most of his entries could not be written by any other satirist at any other period: "The most delightful introduction you can make is to introduce an important person to someone he or she is going to find sexually interesting . . . you march Kiki over to your well-known friend. 'Antonio, you're going to love this girl. She once made Warren Beatty bleed out the ears.' "

No segment of the population is overlooked. Youth is warned that food fights are unattractive and dangerous: "At Phillips Exeter Academy, a student was hit in the face with a piece of dining-hall meatloaf. Some of it got in his mouth, and he died." Older readers are counseled on fashion. For men: "A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life." For women, four iron rules: "1) No jewelry bigger than your dog; 2) No dog smaller than your purse; 3) No purse larger in diagonal measurement than your waist is in circumference; 4) No pants on waists larger than diagonal measurement of purse + dog + earrings."

Other helpful categories include "The Horrible Wedding" ("Should the divorce lawyers accompany you on the honeymoon?"), "Conversation" ("Practically anything you say will seem amusing if you're on all fours"), and "The Hip Funeral" ("How to tell when your friends are dead").

Throughout his manual, O'Rourke maintains a tone of caustic irony. It fails to disguise a moralist concerned with a lapse of decorum and values. In a discussion of capital punishment, the condemned is told, "Try to think of something piquant to say on your way to the gas chamber. 'See you in hell, Mom,' is nice. Things like . . . 'Don't stop to mourn, organize' sound too stiff for what's basically an informal situation." It is at such times that the mask of the mockingbird slips off to reveal the owl beneath, hooting at a world he is furiously attempting to save.