For anyone who has read books which deal with how men react in wartime, this novel is often referred to as a realistic description of military life. In a sense, it could in certain parts, be an English version of Joseph Hellers novel, Catch-22 with better character development and a darker form of humor. Evelyn Waugh is best known for his novel, Brideshead Revisited, but this novel is a semi-biographical account of his war time experiences as well as his relationship with his Catholicism (he converted to Catholicism in 1930 after the failure of his first marriage).

Harrison Salisbury was the first NY Times correspondent stationed in Moscow after World War II and wrote a number of both fiction and non-fiction books about life in the Soviet Union, including a classic on the siege of Leningrad, The 900 Days. Unlike Walter Duranty, the besotted and compromised NY Times reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Soviet regime, Salisbury was not compromised by the system and was often criticized by the Soviets.

This novel tells a familiar story; a young Soviet citizen who somehow runs afoul of the Soviet system. He is pulled from front line service against the Germans and run through the hands of the Soviet secret police (including at Lubyanka prison, also known as the gates of hell) and the Gulag system. Along the way, his life is destroyed; his wife (at his request), divorces him so she may continue her schooling (being married to an enemy of the State would hinder her), his best friend after serving his time becomes a supporter of the State, his dreams of a better world are destroyed.

Despite it all, the main character survives and becomes a major dissent against the system. With the publication of his main book outside of the Soviet system, and, given the timing of its publication, he manages to salvage his dignity and resurrect his dreams of a better world.

Is this book a thinly covered version of the life of Solzhenitsyn (written in a clearer manner than Solzhenitsyn would have ever done)? More likely it is a composite character of survivors of the Gulag system who were able to maintain their humanity and hope for the future.

If you are not familiar with novels about the Soviet system, this is an easy read and should give you an idea of the brutality and craziness of a system which promised utopia but neglected to remember human nature.

In 1848, much of Europe was swept by revolution; in France, Hungary, Poland, Italy and elsewhere, people rebelled against the system set up by the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.  Institutions seems to be moribund; police surveillance was everywhere, and the governments were insistent on maintaining the status quo. This excellent novel, often regarded as the finest to come out of Hungary, tells the story of that time and centers on twin aristocratic brothers from the wealthy Dukay family.

During the Second World War, Grossman was an outstanding war correspondent for the Soviet Union and did his part to create the waves of patriotism which helped the Soviet Union defeat Germany.  After the war, Grossman became disillusioned with the system; his visits to the death camps in the Occupied Lands and the refusal of the official State organs to portray the millions of Jewish victims as having any special place in the memory of the war, plus the move towards anti-Semitism once the war was won helped to make him created his greatest novels.

Over three hundred years ago, a Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire built a bridge at the small village of Visegrad in modern day Bosnia.  At the time, the Ottoman Empire was near its peak and the bridge was s symbol of the power of the Empire.  Ivo Andric, a Serbo-Croat, grew up in the area; he learned the tales and history of the bridge, how it was built, how it was a meeting place for not only the Ottomans, but also the Christians and Jewish leaders of the area.  He traces its history through a series of stories spanning the centuries, capturing the mindset, problems and changes over the three hundred years.

Although I enjoyed this novel, it was not up to the standard of some of his other works (When Nietzsche Wept, etc.).  Addressing the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who is often called the “pessimistic German” in the form of a novel is difficult, for unlike other philosophers, it would be difficult to apply Schopenhauer’s view of life and do anything other than commit suicide (in my view).  Schopenhauer’s outlook on life reflected his life experience; brilliant, yet rude, self-centered, dogmatic and ill at ease in society and rejected by the two “loves” of his life, he lived a life alone, unloved and unloving.  Any attempt by anyone to reach out to him was viewed with the utmost suspicion and mistrust, even to the point of rejecting the advice of his publicist who suggested his changing the overly long and non-descript title of his works.  It was not until late in his life that he was “discovered” and when that happened, financial security was his for the first time in his life.  As often happens, that security did impact his life and he became moderately more sociable, etc.  He strongly influenced European intellectual thought, unfortunately not for the best.

For nearly eighty years, Dreiser’s novel, written in 1900, was only available in a basically censored version.  The Pennsylvania Edition goes back to his original manuscript and presents this tale of a young woman, on her own, and the two men who love her as the author intended.  Why was this American classic not published in its original form? Because Dreiser’s wife and his friend Arthur Henry, along with the publisher, felt it was filled with too much sex and was too dark.  With that in mind, the reader of this version must remember that the novel was written in 1900 and given our norms of today, seeking the lurid sexuality which was censored (by the author at the instance of the publisher, his wife and friend) will be hard pressed to find anything to stimulate the senses.

This excellent novel will give the reader an excellent idea of Chicago in 1900; a time of rapid growth and opportunity, when job seekers with no skills could find work which would give them some skills, when many of those same workers could be exploited by their employers and a time of a strict moral code.  In this time, two men love a young woman who gradually learns the ways of the world.  One of the men will leave and survive, the other will be destroyed.  In effect, this is the American version of a novel by Balzac or Zola who so outraged the staid establishment of their time.  Even though the United States has a First Amendment and did not have a national censor as in France, given the time, the novel in its original form would have created a major furor.

The characters are well developed, and one can sense the emotions as they progress through the novel.  I first read this novel forty years ago and probably once a decade, I re-read it, picking up more from each reading.  It is though, a melancholy book and the reader should be prepared at the end, to set the novel aside and put one’s emotions back in order.  You will also find that the human condition has not changed very much over the past one hundred plus years.

This book was the only one written by Boleslaw (as he was known) and covers the time when he served in a Polish cavalry unit, fighting for the Russians during WWI.  Based on his experiences covers a short time from the beginning of the Russian Revolution when the Russian army began to break up through the forces of defeat, starvation, useless slaughter and Communist propaganda.  His unit (there were similar units fighting for the Germans and Austrians), then decided that their oath to the Czar was null and void and they attempted to reach fellow Polish units across the front lines. 

 Mr. Zilahy was the most popular Hungarian writer of his time; wrote three novels tracing the Dukay family, a fictitious Magyar family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire through to the takeover by the Communist after World War II.  This book covers the time after World War I through about 1950.

The novel contain a very interesting in insightful study of the Magyar nobility of the time, from their belief in their superiority over their Romanian subjects, their resentment of their German neighbors and their inability to recognize their soon to be realized inability to adapt to a rapidly changing world.  Proud and haughty, they refused to work with the Austrians (the Magyars and Austrians were the two major power holders of the Dual Crown, Austro-Hungarian Empire aka Habsburg Empire) and would block even military budgets over which color knots their officers could wear on their sabers. The book is also filled with interesting historical facts (the belief that Cleopatra’s true source of power was the amber ring and how this led to the founding of Budapest and a rush by women for amber), etc.

Few novels are well written, but Zilahy was successful in weaving an interesting web of actual history with fictional character development, with many experiences drawn from his personal experiences. You feel that you are cast back into that time; the characters are vivid, the situations interesting and you have a cast if personalities to remember long after you have finished the book.  Well worth a read.

Published in the United States in 1943, this interesting novel the decline of the French intellectual class prior to the outbreak of World War II.  Not all of the characters are French, for we also find a Soviet Ambassador, paranoid and corrupt, an elderly Russian Revolutionary who is only a seeking a quiet exit from a life and efforts that he has come to doubt and a young Soviet secretary who loves to buy Paris clothing but keeps trying to convince herself that life in the Soviet Union of 1938 is better and happier than Paris.