THE LITTLE FISHES

by Erik Christian Haugaard ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1967

In the unclean waters live the little fishes. Some are eaten; most I believe. But some will escape."" The prophecy of a German officer, uttered in contempt, comes to pass in this stark, sometimes ironic, novella of children in war. Naples, 1943, a montage of vignettes: little Mario, littlest of the fishes, offering to eat dirt for the reward of a coin; twelve-year-old Guido begging from a simple old priest, from a foolish rich woman; remembering a lame beggar and his death, his sweet, bitter mother and her death; taking Mario and his eleven-year-old sister Anna into the cave he shares with a poor carpenter and a bony horse; dispossessed. Then the exodus (and a linear narrative): a girl's clean dress bought for Anna; escape from a thief who would Faginize them; an idyllic summer in the country; Italian surrender and German intransigence; fleeing north. In Casino: Mario ill, dying, dead; the mountain bombarded, food gone; escape to a cave crowded with refugees (a baby born--how long can he live?); escape again to the Allies (the children's friend, Luigi, the quixotic teacher, blown up by a mine); and then...an epilogue, a kind wish. (But ""a kind wish is like a summer cloud, it brings no rain to the parched earth."") No melodrama here, much mature, sometimes wry reflection (on the art of begging, on scars as ""the story of your life,"" on the incomprehensibility of war, on Fascism, on man as neither good nor bad but having ""the right to live""), and a recurrent refrain at the beginning, ""The scream of the poor is not always just; but if you do not listen to it, then you will never understand justice""; at the end, ""It is understanding that makes the difference between us and the animals. And when you understand you can feel a kind of happiness even in the worst misery."" Uniquely powerful in circumstance and piercing in analysis for a juvenile; it looks younger than it should and may disturb some, but it's a must for the mature, and they needn't be ""readers.

Pub Date: May 1, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION