Hbo's 'Pierce' Sticks To Novel    • A A  NEW YORK — A remarkable
thing (and there are many) about the HBO miniseries "Mildred
Pierce": The way it breathes.  This five-part, five and a half
hour adaptation of the 1941 James M. Cain novel is an unhurried
period piece that sets the viewer down in Depression-era
Glendale, Calif., and into the complicated world of its heroine.
But even as it inhabits a long-ago time and place, it also seems
to dovetail with the current day. Leafy Glendale of 1931 isn't
exactly the Dust Bowl, but it, like the rest of the country, has
been slammed by economic crisis that, for the viewer, may strike
a familiar chord.  Meanwhile, Mildred's plight is magnified: She
is suddenly a divorcee, forced to find work to support herself
and her two young daughters.  Ambitious and resourceful, Mildred
will do that and then some: She builds a restaurant empire.  But
during a saga stretching nearly a decade, Mildred, despite her
business successes, will face class stigma (her sleepy burg just
does