TRY TO WEDGE THE nature of human conflict into a novel under two hundred pages and the fit had better be tight. For Into the Purple Duchy, (Key Porter, 169 pages, $18.95 cloth), Matthew Hart relies on satire for the condensation and restraint necessary to such an endeavour, but he underestimates the skill satiric prose demands.

H.M.S. Hood and the German battleship Bismarck appear on the St. Lawrence as souped-up nineties ghost ships, causing partisan Canadians to fling strudel and banana bread in an absurd display of nationalism. Mimi and Anne- practitioners of that "decaying craft," radio journalism-prefer their politics to be sexual. Sporting press passes, good haircuts and flattering outfits, they initiate onboard romances with high-ranking officers. In a world afloat since WW II, ethics are not a problem.

Hart negotiates these treacherous waters with irony as thick as bunker oil, and the result is a disagreeable mix of style and substance. Dull details and generic allusions are needlessly repeated; Hart's humour-such as a pun linking the word "fruit" with an aged homosexual officer-lacks originality, comic timing and edge. Characters, especially women, are reduced to a single foible or gesture.

Peeved when her German beau feels more passion for battle than for her, Mimi remarks, "Maybe our problems with these guys are a metaphor for the bigger thing." Hart's insights and political acuity are buried beneath this sort of sloppy witticism. "The bigger thing"-whatever that is-never surfaces.