THE BARRICADES

by Philip Toynbee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 18, 1944

Irony and somewhat cruel comedy as the base for a novel of English bohemia of the late thirties, with sharp writing and caricature offsetting the ultimate sterility of the book and its characters. The barricades are the unchanging demarcations between age and youth, social castes, and the have and have note. There is Rawlins, the dismissed schoolmaster, determined to drift for a time and sponging here and there, representing a rather passive liberalism; there is Markham, his former pupil, an eighteen year old idealist fired by the war in Spain and a desire to fight it; there are the people Rawlins attaches himself to, decedents and dissolutes, a crippled rich man, a Russian choreographer, an Earl's daughter who distracts Markham from his Spanish cause then throws him over. At the close Markham crosses to the Spanish border where awlins, in a tary crise of conscience, tries to dissuade him and fails. The emotional aridity of the generation the political rallying points -- from Markham's young ferver to Rawlins' diffident sympathy, portrayed in caustic contrast.

Pub Date: Aug. 18, 1944

ISBN: 0837138248

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday, Doran

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1944

Categories: FICTION