THE ORDEAL

by Vasily Bykov ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 1972

As unrelenting as the experience on which it's based, this is a self-limited account of two partisans during the Second World War in a lonely stretch of Western Russia attempting to escape both the Germans and the Russian politsai. It is a precis of endurance and attrition to the questionable point of survival. Rybak, who is physically stronger but not very thoughtful, takes the initiative as they proceed from one village to another, attempting to get something to eat, dealing with the headman at the first stop, and dragging his feverishly ill, then wounded, compatriot Sotnikov along. At the end he makes a skin-saving deal with the politsai while Sotnikov, the braver man, reflects on life as an affirmation and death which neither resolves nor justifies. Although Bykov has been said to have gone a little beyond the ""socialist Realist canon"" and its flat parallels/contrasts, it's not by much. Not enough to overcome the stark intransigence of the terrain.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1972

Categories: FICTION