THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN

by Michel Bernanos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 8, 1968

This last (Mr. Bernanos, Son of Georges Bernanos, died in 1964) novel, actually a novella, is a hallucinatory account of ""death on the prowl"" projected against an unconquerable terrain. Symbolic to be sure, although the symbolism is far more accessible than the physical features of the ascent-descensus Avernus. Becalmed on a dead sea for almost two months, there is the deliquescence of men and provisions, survived only by two--a boy and his friend who reach ground. ""Saved,"" they are now faced by red mountains capped by a red sky (the ""fire of lost souls""), prefaced by an arid desert which must be crossed before they can make the journey upward. . . . The French press, given to eloquent rhetoric, has hailed this as a ""rare experience,"" etc., etc. One questions its substantive value as a ""great symbolic novel"" of man's fate but on more immediate terms it reads with arresting visual effects and instaneity.

Pub Date: Jan. 8, 1968

ISBN: 0877973520

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1968

Categories: FICTION