COMRADE FOREST

A story about Russian guerillas, with no great literary values, and with certain obstacles, provides, nonetheless, a certain excitement and emotional quality. The sincerity, the impressive intensity of small defiances, the maintenance of hatred, the love of country that demands it be destroyed rather than fall into Fascist hands, provide background for the romance of Belobruhkova and her selfless love for The Tuliak, even when he plays out the plot to betray her to the Germans. Too bad a confusion of difficult Russian names, Russian words (translated in footnotes) and the late arrival of a novel on this subject, provide inevitable drawbacks to wide interest in this moving commentary on the high resolve of the Russian people.