Red Cavalry, by I. Babel, translated by John Harland (Knopf,
13s.) has received a great deal of attention and praise in Russia where its author is hailed as one of the most remarkable writers of the Post-Revolution School. His stories are mainly about the sufferings of the Jews and Poles, and of the Cossacks themselves in their unsuccessful Polish campaign of 1920. Babel's treatment of this theme is violent, fragmentary and episodic. His distorted meta- phors and scenes of intolerable cruelty startle at first but through constant repetition end by failing to move us. In a typical story, " Crossing the Zbroutch," " the orange sun rolls down the sky like a decapitated head," in the air " drips the smell of yesterday's blood." At his billet the writer shares a mattress already occupied by the mutilated corpse
detail. Perhaps because Babel is himself a Jew, one of the first - We
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