From the City, From the Plough
by .Ives Washburn, 82.75.
A best-seller in England, this novel portrays an infantry battalion before and during the Normandy invasion. Some of the characters are unmistakably related to the traditional stereotypes of the British soldier, and there is at least a hint of the Boy Scout outlook on war. The book, though, has solid qualities. It is affectingly modest, skillfully selective, and often moving without fanfare. The talk, routine, and small dramas of camp life are reported with real artistry. Mr. Baron, an infantryman himself, has turned in an honest, very capable account of the war as he saw it. But the excitement of the British reviewers quoted on the jacket seems extravagant.