THE BEST SHALL DIE
By
A strange sort of book, in which a survivor, presumably suffering under a life sentence to jail, tells in his own terms the story of the Hungarian revolution. Strange, because at the start, Comrade Orczy is a Communist, working for a Party organ (and under a writing for a counter-revolutionary sheet). His chief, Balogh, whom he detects, sends him on an assignment (ostensibly to do a report-actually to serve as an informer). And this starts a whole new chain reaction, which leads up to the tragic student insurrection and its aftermath- and the special involvement of Orczy and the medical student he had come to love. It is a grim study of conflict within and without- of mixed loyalties- of disillusioned idealists- of partisan justice- of futile sacrifice, which achieves no end. The closing chapters are bitter against the outside world, blinding itself to what happened in Hungary, and give the whole an aura of J'accuse. And yet- throughout -the reader finds it difficult to sympathize too deeply with the hero.