SCALA DEI

by Daniel B. Dodson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1975

A one-to-one Nuremberg trial takes place when former Nazi Colonel yon Kleist--a good man we are led to believe--returns to the abbey, now a hostelry, in the Pyrenees once known as Scala Dai or the Stairs of God. A ""partially buffed man,"" he attempts to dispose of the ""inexpungeable guilt on [his] soul"" via a confession to the abbey's current proprietaire, Masson, re the ""blind, savage sickness"" which overcame him in the form of love/lust for the elegant Magda who, it seems, was an insatiable slut corrupting everyone in sight. All in Wagnerian tenor prose which Professor Dodson, who teaches English at Columbia, should find hard to expunge--hoch piffle like ""Through the gauze of the curtains a red emblem rose in the sky, and she was roseate marble beneath me.

Pub Date: June 1, 1975

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Mason/Charter

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975

Categories: FICTION