[In] his most recent book, The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival and Manners (1975), [as in his preceding works, Donleavy's] chief interest lies in exploiting for humorous effect the circumstances of the unpedigreed but desperately eager individual who seeks to join the ranks of the social elite…. Indeed, The Unexpurgated Code is the kind of book that the zany, non-conforming protagonist of The Ginger Man, Sebastian Dangerfield, very well might have written … had he decided, in rakish middle age, to reveal the rules by which he has managed not only to survive but also to prosper in a cutthroat society. (p. 210)

[Donleavy] uses his burlesque book of etiquette primarily as a vehicle for the expression of his great scorn for all elements in society—both "high" and "low." The society he depicts—usually British in its demarcations of caste but sometimes suggesting an American milieu—is a...