Afbeelding auteur

Albert J. Guérard (1914–2000)

Auteur van Hardy: A Collection of Critical Essays

25+ Werken 200 Leden 3 Besprekingen

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Werken van Albert J. Guérard

Hardy: A Collection of Critical Essays (1963) — Redacteur — 59 exemplaren
Maquisard: A Christmas Tale (1945) 16 exemplaren
Andre Gide (1951) 16 exemplaren
Conrad the Novelist (1969) 14 exemplaren
The bystander (1959) 9 exemplaren
Thomas Hardy (1964) 8 exemplaren
Stories of the Double (1967) 5 exemplaren
Christine/Annette 5 exemplaren
The exiles (1962) 4 exemplaren
Night journey (1950) 4 exemplaren
Suspended sentences (1999) 3 exemplaren

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An Outcast of the Islands (1896) — Introductie — 797 exemplaren
Lord Jim [Norton Critical Edition, 2nd ed.] (1996) — Medewerker — 154 exemplaren
Lord Jim [Norton Critical Editiom, 1968] (1968) — Medewerker — 92 exemplaren
THE NIGGER OF THE NARCISSUS / THE END OF THE TETHER / (1960) — Introductie, sommige edities78 exemplaren
The Best American Short Stories 1947 (1947) — Medewerker — 7 exemplaren

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Insightful analysis of three of the greatest novelists that highlights the essence of their craft. Guerard is one of the most thoughtful of critics whose commentary is filled with insights that help the reader understand the fiction of these authors.
 
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jwhenderson | Jan 13, 2023 |
Albert J Guerard (1914-2000) was an American critic novelist and professor. He published ten novels between 1938-1995 and Night Journey came to my attention because it was published in 1950 and has been considered to be science fiction. It is not typical of 1950’s science fiction as it reads more like a literary novel of imaginative fiction, it seems to have received decent reviews at the time (New York herald Tribune) but has since been forgotten, which is a bit of a shame as it is a good psychological novel with convincing elements of realism. I bought a first edition of the novel online at a very reasonable price.

The novel opens with an army man talking about a disciplinary case he is investigating. It is set in a period sometime after the second world war in Europe when the author imagines that individual states (perhaps the Balkans) are still involved in wars that have been going on for some time. He is stationed in the town of Moratan which has just been retaken from the enemy (the dictatorship). Much of the town has been destroyed by war and the disciplinary compound is in a field outside the town. Here he is trying to piece together the story of Paul Haldan. The point of view switches to Haldan who tells his story in the first person. He is a man almost destroyed by his wartime experiences, he was one of the first soldiers to enter Moratan in the company of a civilian M. Montalva who is an expert at working behind enemy lines. Their job was to encourage an underground socialist cell to take over the key military objectives of the town before the army rolled in with its tanks. The socialists were in a dilemma because their military sources were telling them to stay underground but Montalva persuaded them to take action, saying the occupation forces were on their way. This proved to be the case but after 31 hours they withdrew in the face of a counter attack leaving the socialists high and dry. Haldan had been party to the negotiations and found himself waiting for Montalva to evacuate him in the last vehicle in town. He saw Montalva running down the steps of the town hall, but made a snap decision to betray him and drove out. Haldan was racked by guilt believing that he had left Montalva to die, but when the army again retook Moratan he was tasked with contacting the socialist where he learned that Montalva was still active.

Albert J. Guerard served in the army during the second world war as a technical sergeant in the psychological wartime branch and uses these experiences to paint a convincing picture of the effect of war on the soldiers involved. The early chapters are almost Kafka-esque when Haldan is first posted and cannot find out who he should report to, or what he should be doing, everybody else seems to be in the same situation where the latest rumours of action are spoken about as though they are happening to other people. Soldiers must and do accept the situation, but when Haldan gets the chance to work with Montalva he jumps at it despite warnings from the ‘old hands’. Haldan is taken out of his comfort zone when he is no longer is in a chain of command, because working with a civilian forces him to make moral choices. Guerard portrays the war torn town of Moratan very convincingly as well as the battlegrounds outside the town, but the main strength in his writing is in getting his readers to understand Haldan’s situation and so he is allowed to incorporate incidents from his past in his confessions.

Guerard hones in on the psychological war efforts used by the antagonists and so propaganda techniques are used by both sides, nobody seems to have a real idea of what the objectives are and the novel has been compared to Orwell’s 1984, which was published a year earlier. Guerard’s novel is different in that it takes the psychology right down into the battle fields that would still have been fresh in the minds of his readers. Guerard’s book contains elements of an alternate history and the enemy does have weapons that the army does not possess: there are midget tanks and a bomb that can reduce a whole area to fine dust, but these are not important to the story only acting on a psychological level for the reader rather than the protagonists.

This is a good novel, well written with a story that retains mystery and suspense throughout. The portrayal of war on the ground and the actions of the army are convincing, it captures a period in time effectively and the dust and dirt of urban warfare clings to the text. The book might be overlong for some readers, but it is conscious of telling it’s story while not neglecting to place the reader in the situations faced by the characters. Many elements make for an interesting read and it just about holds a place in the genre of science fiction. I rate it at 3.5 stars.
… (meer)
½
2 stem
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baswood | Aug 3, 2018 |
856 Hardy: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Albert J. Guerard (read 29 May 1966) Read when I was 'doing' the major Hardy novels. I do not remember much about the book since I did no post-reading note.
 
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Schmerguls | Jun 12, 2010 |

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Statistieken

Werken
25
Ook door
7
Leden
200
Populariteit
#110,008
Waardering
½ 3.7
Besprekingen
3
ISBNs
11

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