THE SMOKING MOUNTAIN

by Kay Boyle ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

This collection of 11 short stories and an introductory piece on the trial of Frankfurt's Heinrich Baab was originally published in 1951. There is a foreword ow by William Shirer alerting the reader's attention to the continuing pertinence of these ""Stories of Germany during the Occupation""; Baab's trial illustrates the perennial paradox of the German duality which has defied so many for so long. The stories were written from 1948 on when Kay Boyle joined her husband who was posted in Germany and when she ""committed"" herself to ""a painstaking and almost completely Loveless search for another face of Germany"" which was then in ruins but by no means humbled. Always there is the evasion of the individual responsibility for the collective guilt; in Begin Again a medical student shrugs off the past- ""we were forced into an unfortunate role"". And what of the victor- spoils certainly, but not always honor, and there are several stories of the Amis- from officers to G.I.'s (cf. The Lost or Home, in which a Negro becomes ""for once the dispenser of white-skinned charity"": as he buys a pair of shoes for a destitute German child.) The stories have considerable range, from compassion to censure; their emotional appeal is not diminished by their political or social implications and they achieve much of their ioquence through indirection.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1963

Categories: FICTION