From: Ruth I. Gordon <druthgo>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 13:37:20 -0800

This is part of my review for the Holub.

In a strange and fine way, Holub tells the story of a naive, young farmhand tricked into the Wurttemburg regiment of Napoleon?s ?Grand Army,? on the road to the czar?s Russia in 1812. It is a story of the sheer horror of war, love, friendship. Adam Feuchler, 16, tells his story and the story of Napoleon?s armies gathered throughout Europe on the long march from the German states and the terrible retreat from the Russian winter, A map and historical note aids the reader realize the geography and the historical situation. Adam?s farmer substitutes him for his one remaining son and both as a farmhand and an enlisted man, he is treated in a primitive and sadistic fashion by those in control. His sergeant is cruel, dishonest, and brutal. But he is saved by his lieutenant, a seventeen-year-old from a noble family. The two are mere cogs among the vast hordes in the ill-equipped and untrained army and travel to a from Moscow together. The losses in the Wurttemburg regiment amounted to all but 300 of the 15,000 who set out. [p. 218]
        In calm but dramatic fashion, for the facts are dramatic, horribly so, Holub gives readers well delineated characters, settings, conditions. Although Adam?s narrative seems very high toned for a peasant, it is understandable in a suspenseful piece of historical fiction that can be read easily. Was the "high tone" the result of translation, I wonder?

  But what drove Napoleon who drove his Grande Armee mercilessly toward its doom?
Received on Tue 07 Mar 2006 03:37:20 PM CST