Evening star., 1944-12-10
Road to the Ocean

By Leonid Leontop. Translated
from the Russian by Norbert
Gutern1dn. FISCHER. 49,
The Russians write the best novels.
They always did and, it seems, they
still do. This doesn't mean any
thing so stupid as that all Russian
novels are better than all French or
English or Bulgarian novels, for in
stance. 1t just means that when you
get a really good Russian novel you
are apt to have the best. Such q
book has an inimitable blend-a pro-
foundly mature understanding COM
bined with q child-like directness,
sublety treated with simplicity and
simplicity treated with subtlety-
which always seizes the mind and
takes it captive. That, at least, was
the tradition of the old masters and,
in the few modern novels which the
reviewer has seen translated, it Is
carried on. This present book is an
example Of it.
1t is completely absorbing story
as a story. The author is young
man: he would have been Is when
the revolution broke. He is obviously
worshipful of his country's present
political course; he interrupts his
narrative whenever it suits him to
sing a hymn of political praise. And,
it has to be confessed, to cast politi-
cal curses at the wicked capitalist
countries, which, he says repeatedly
will all be conquered by Russian-led
Communist armies. But he drives
his story on in the good old way
and it rides right over the propa-
ganda. You read because you want
to see what is going to happen,
which is as good reason as the re-
viewer knows for staying with any
work of fiction.
Yet one cannot say that the propa-
ganda element is lacking from the
story itself. For it deals mainly
with the efforts of former White
officer who has joined the party
and is a valued railroad executive
to keep his past history from COM
ing to light. His chief on the rail-
road is an old Bolshevik who was
once condemned to death by the
young mans father, a tsarist judge
The sons course has been perfectly
conformable since the revolutionary
triumph. but the author takes il
merely for granted that, if his fam
lily origin were known, he would be
ruined. With great subtlety the ole
Bolshevik and the young officer play
cat and mouse. The reader with ar
American sense of justice will find II
hard to see why man should be
punished for his fathers behavior
or his birth, but, even with that
reservation, the compulsion of the
story will be very strong. The scope
of the tale is broad, it should bt
said, and takes in huge cast oi
characters with scenes of Moscow
life and in provincial towns, all
livingly realistic.
Praise for the work as literature
however, should not blind reader
TO the consideration that it rests
on values gravely different from
our own. Not only the doctrine tina,
1t is crime" to belong to a non.
proletarian class, but many othel
strange ideas are found in the work
The justification of informers, the
acceptance of hearsay testimony
and presumptiye evidence, the idea
that mistake by the party should
be punished by making scapegoat
Of the individual who originally op-
posed the similar looking.
glass-house pieces of logic abound
In the narrative. But, though the
political conduct of the people Is
queer, they live as men and women
The reviewer commends the book
It is one of the most talented she
has seen In long time.