- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Hutchinson Educ. (Dec 1963)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0090684303
- ISBN-13: 978-0090684304
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,573,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I first read this novel about 55 years ago. I liked it then, but I've read it again recently & I underestimated it; it is essential 1940s/1950s fiction. In the last month or so, Stella Gibbon's "Westwood" has been reprinted & Elizabeth Bowen's "The Heat of the Day" has been serialised on the radio. Of the three, the Bowen is perhaps the best novel; again, having reread it I realise it is better than ever I thought, but for me the Balchin is a more enjoyable read. The Gibbons is set in north London in wartime, but the story lacks the essential focus of time & place which the other two novels have in spades. In "The Small Back Room" Sammy is working in a poorly defined Boffin's department testing & analysing the performance of new weapons. An aluminium prosthesis replaces one foot which he lost long before the war; it is a psychological & physical handicap which he finds more & more difficult to cope with in his personal life with Susan, who he will not marry & his professional life which involves field trials & investigations. His department is a bee hive of conflicting interests; the military, the politicos, the academics & the boffins rarely see eye to eye. Sammy becomes involved in the defusing of a particularly nasty German anti-personnel mine which kills whoever comes near it, including professionals from the army. The last part of the book is a wonderful account of how he defuses one, depending upon the physical strength of a senior professional army officer to finish the job. This description of the mutual respect & cooperation between handicapped Sammy & a very strong & fit officer is a brilliant contrast with the green house atmosphere of the government department in which he works. This is essential reading!
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