THE BARBARIANS AT THE GATES

by Richard Bankowsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 19, 1972

There's a lot of hard research behind this, some of it historical and, one gathers, some more market-oriented. Basically it's another psycho-sexual rendition (is there any other kind?) of the Nazi Reich centered around a hapless supply-depot Obersturmfuhrer named -- on your toes now -- Christian. Once upon a time Christian Romansky was a serious liberal intellectual with a lovely wife and some lovely, sensitive children and a crowning disdain for politics. A type obviously ill-equipped for day-to-day contingencies, and it's contingencies of the most immediate and melodramatic sort that lead him into the party and, ultimately, down the chute. But this is more than a case study; it is also something of a warning. While the local Polish aristocracy group-gropes with the German command, local children flock to the marshes to smoke dope and talk about love with a mad monk, and a compound full of desperate Jews waits for the moment of vengeance. It comes against all likelihood, for the benefit of Christian's symbolic liberal intellectual conscience, and an ominous epilogue points up the lesson. But only after everybody's been stripped and put through a gaudy bloodbath.

Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown -- A.M.P.

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1972

Categories: FICTION