If not directed at a popular level, this is the outstanding novel
to have come out of the war, in the universality of its framework,
its thoughtfulness, and its writing which is swift, believable and
often brilliant. Shaw, whose name has carried to an intellectual
audience largely on his short stories (in particular, the memorable
Act of Faith) has hit on all the composites that make up a war
world and its armies; the hard ugliness, the decadence of pfc's and
Generals, the cruelty, the atrocities, the perversities, the
beauty, the sentiment, the intelligence, the cold logic, the
mathematical illogic, the fear, the bitterness, the sexual laxity,
and even the hope. Shaw surrounds his novel with broad, valid areas
of thought, and then works from within, showing a delicacy in
handling shadows and half tones and hardly perceptible character
gradations. The structure of the book resembles The Fountainhead as
it deals with distinct, removed persons who eventually meet up with
one another. The decadent symbolism is reminiscent of Remarque's
Arch of Triumph; the aimlessness, the bitter sophistication, the
emptiness of world philosophies, the inability to grasp the center
of things. Working in large blocks, Shaw covers territory both
affected and unaffected by war; America (New York, the West Coast,
Vermont), Austria, Germany, France, Africa, England, Belgium. There
is New Yorker Michael, a product of Hollywood and the theatre and
soft beds and the cocktail hour, who after a series of easy berths
in the army, finally finds himself at the front and turns into
something of a hero. There is the Jew, Noah, and his wife, Hope,
both American, who symbolize a kind of unspoiled Adam and Eve
before the fall. There is Christian, a name as paradoxical as the
title of the book, who represents the German soldier- coldly
intelligent, completely heartless, impregnable even in death. There
is Captain Green, effeminate and efficient, who carries within him
the kind of humanity and tolerance that Shaw sees as the only hope
for a disintegrating world. He is one of the "young lions". And
there are all the men and women in between who provide both links
and separate entities. A modern treatise on war, this is deserving
of considerable critical attention. (Kirkus Reviews)
"The Young Lions" is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the
experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from
the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American
film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his
life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope,
confusion, and complexity of war.
General
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