SURVIVAL

by Phyille Bottome ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25, 1943

Rudi"" von Rittenhaue, Viennese psychiatrist, finds himself a ghost in a strange world, when he comes to refuge in England after the Austrian anschluss. This is his story of the remaking of his world. It is also the story of a wise and tender psychiatrist seeing into the mental ills of others and bringing them healing. Told against the stress of the period when England stood aside and believed in ""peace in our time"" -- and against the period when England found her soul during the Battle of London, this is not primarily a war story, but a story of people during war. There have been relatively few psychological novels recently, and this manages to hold the interest, even tested against the pace of daily press news. Situations, convincingly developed, characters, convincingly revealed, build a story of the impact of war on the tangled skeins of lives brought together in sharp relief. It has passages of long-winded dissertations that, nonetheless, help reveal the doctor's own troubled confusion of personal disaster. Phyllis Bottoms showed in Private Worlds her understanding of the intricacies of the mind; that understanding is again brought into play. Not so moving a book as The Mortal Storm, it is profoundly interesting.

Pub Date: Aug. 25, 1943

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1943

Categories: FICTION