THE SEVEN WHO FLED

by Frederic Prokosch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 26, 1937

It seems inconsistent to include a book in this section that I, personally, did not like, but -- under my personal distaste, I acknowledge and recognize an appeal for a good many people, men particularly, who will hail it as a work of genius. Prokosch created a small tempest in a teapot with his The Asiatics. This is a less excitingly novel book than that, but once again he gives free rein to a lurid imagination and an absorption in the Far East. He takes a group arbitrarily thrown together and as arbitrarily thrust forth onto their own and others' paths. ""Escapologists"" all -- and he follows them to their several fates which cover a wide range, from an explorer's death in a snowbank, through murder and capture by the languor of the East, to the fate of a Spanish woman as a prostitute in the streets of Shanghaii. There is a queer detachment and unreality about it, a certain lack of cohesion which makes it seem confused. But through it pulses a feeling of the East, of indifference to life and the individual, a neuroticism that fascinates while it repels. Watch it!

Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1937

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1937

Categories: NONFICTION