Because George Mills is composed in five parts, each treating slices of the lives of various characters named George Mills, it is rich as a Dickens or Hardy novel in idiosyncratic characters. Guillalume, the foppish baron who pronounces the original curse, or the self-doubting but determined King George IV (who keeps his mistress despite a hostile, plotting Parliament), the Florida spiritualists of the current Mills's youth, and the university types who exist on the perimeter of this Mills's life are wonderful types who come briefly to life in the saga of the Georges.

But the four Millses represented in the book are the determining elements of Elkin's characterization. "Greatest Grandfather," the patriarch whose story is retold over the centuries, represents the restless servant class, a Sancho Panza-type character reluctantly associated with a master in search of adventure. It is clear as their mistakes take them to Poland that...