ONE MAN'S DESTINY

by Mikhail Sholokhov ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 12, 1967

Literary epics celebrating the fatherland and the making of a people are rare in our age. Perhaps that may explain Sholokhov's immense popularity in the Soviet Union and his respected image elsewhere. For certainly, however much one may respond to the sentimental, hortatory humanism and proletarian struggles thundering along the banks of his Don novels, there is little there, especially in style and characterization, which one could call memorable or compelling. A noble earthiness, a sense of history unfolding itself on a vast, churning canvas of small events and great issues--these are the qualities giving sweep and interest to Sholokhov's Don chronicle. They are, alas, almost totally absent in this slight collection of random pieces written over the last forty years--stories, articles, sketches: all minor, all filled with varying degrees of chauvinistic pugnacity, bolshevik pieties, and uplifting treacle. The overwrought descriptions of Nazi brutality seem too portentous to be heartfelt, and the incidental propaganda is of the crudest sort: ""There is a bright future...the child in the cradle will awaken and no one will remember that there were ever MacArthurs and Trumans in the world."" Indeed, it might all pass as a Red Reader's Digest by a Carl Sandburg of the East.

Pub Date: June 12, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION