[This "fabrication," "The Short Reign of Pippin IV,"] is a froth of a book which must have been great fun to write. In addition, it is one of the purest expressions of true, simple, American affection for the French that has ever been written—compounded with our equally simple conviction that they are also, after all, a funny race.

Mr. Steinbeck's hero is Pippin Arnulf Héristal, a middle-aged amateur astronomer….

The unfolding of M. Héristal's story is directed not by anything he has done, but by something that he is: in his veins flows the blood of Charlemagne…. Thus, when sometime in the near future a French government expires into slightly more than normal anarchy, and every other party has talked itself hoarse, the patient monarchists are able to make themselves heard…. [An] ancient descendant of the Merovingian nobility is able to propose that the line of Charlemagne be revived, and that a certain M. Héristal, Numero 1, Avenue de Marigny, be crowned at Rheims. And, reluctantly he is.

Reluctantly, M. Héristal, now suddenly Pippin the Fourth, is quite as aware as Hamlet that the times are out of joint, but for fifty-four years he has had no inkling that he was born to set them right. Here the moral of Mr. Steinbeck's fabrication—and he is a highly moral writer—begins to show through the joke. For Pippin is both l'homme moyen sensuel, and the ordinary citizen, who is suddenly confronted with responsibility. What is he to do? Lend himself to the shabby face-saving that has set him up as a figure-head, or try to be what a king should be? (p. 6)

This, however, is not poor Pippin's only dilemma. Does he want to rule? Should he?… Pippin is thus confronted not only with the practical problem, on the material level, of whether he can be king. He is also involved in the moral problem of whether it is right for him to try to be king.

I'm afraid it's too much weight for the book to carry. Pippin's allies, with whom he discusses the alternatives he faces, come from the borders of the realm of farce. (pp. 6, 18)

[Sister Hyacinthe and Pippin's uncle, Charles Martel], at any rate, are amusing conceptions, but if we are to accept them at all, it can only be as figures of farce. When we whizz by them at ninety miles an hour, they are very funny indeed…. But when we sit down to discuss moral dilemmas with them, this soufflé of a book threatens to collapse into a sodden crust.

To insist on taking Mr. Steinbeck's fun too seriously is to be a spoilsport. Let us pass over in silence, as Cicero liked so inaccurately to say, that Puritan structure of morality which our author can never quite ignore, and enjoy the fabrication he has draped about it. (p. 18)