REARGUARD ACTIONS
THE WILLING FLESH, by Willi Heinrich, translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston; Weiderfeld and Nicolson, N.Z. price 16/-. IN THEIR SHALLOW GRAVES, by Benno Zieser, translated from the German by Alec Brown; Elek, Enéglish ice 16/-. THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS, Jean-Louis Curtis, translated from the Freceh by Humphrey Hare; Secker . and Warburg, N.Z. price 18/-. WHERE SLEEPS THE IAGGED SWORD, by Charles Connell; Elek, N.Z. price 18/-. ‘THERE is action enough for ten books in Willi Heinrich’s gripping novel on the German retreat from Russia. Corporal Steiner, grim, hardened old soldier, commands a rearguard
platoon of eleven men cut off behind the Russian lines; he leads them back safely, wiping out a Russian command post on the way. This is a soldier’s story, earthy, crude, full of the physical horrors of the battlefield; the troops are a quarrelsome lot and their cowardly officers are up to their necks in regimental intrigues. For this reviewer's taste there are far too many flashbacks and a lot of banal dialogue, but the panic and fear and confusion of the battlefield emerge with eye-witness clarity. _ Another Gertnan soldier also finds disillusionment’ in the Stalingrad "cauldron." Benno Zieser was a machinegunner and obviously very young. A colloquial, ‘chatty style tells his story without artifice. Jean-Louis Curtis’s novel of post-war France is far more mature. His theme is the conflict between the Resistance and the Collaboration against the operatic background of French politics: the Occupation, the Purge, National Indignity, the Right, the Left-everything is in capitals. This is a talkative book. Journalists, actresses, novelists, and critics amuse each other with endless discussions which range from Existentialism to the future of the novel. It is easy to admire the author’s technical skill and his elegance of style, but his story could have been told at far less length. The English bride of a Polish officer finds Communist Poland an unhappy -place, and they make their escape from this country of the Jagged Sword. Their stories are told separately, She is observant and shrewd, and hers is the better story; he is emotional and imagin-
ative.
W.A.
G.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 12
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356REARGUARD ACTIONS New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 12
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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