Resurrected Alive

Two LIVING AND ONE DEAD--Sigurd Christiansen--Liveright ($2.50).

Just so much grit in so many gear-boxes are most themes in most novels. A brilliant exception to this rule is Author Christiansen's Inter-Scandinavian prize novel Two Living and One Dead. So dextrously is its theme amalgamated with its characters that readers will find it impossible to formulate the one without telling the whole story of the others.

When two armed bandits walk one evening into the city post office, Kvisthus, one of the clerks left on duty, is killed. Clerk Lydersen. in a panic, throws himself on one of the bandits, is knocked out. Clerk Berger, who has had time to think, when faced with two revolvers thinks some more, hands over his cash box finally. The bandits escape, and Clerk Berger's troubles begin. The police commissioner, the newspaper, everybody accuse him of cowardice. Berger knows that he was no coward, that he had done the only sensible thing, but even his wife grows cold to him. Meanwhile Lydersen, who had shown fight only because of panicky surprise, becomes a hero, scorns Berger with the rest. Only one man, Rognaas, a fellow lodger of Lydersen's, makes mock of his heroism, tells him that Berger was the only sensible one of the three.

When Lydersen is given a post office promotion over Berger's head, in deep chagrin Berger gets himself transferred to Oslo. After years of desperate loneliness he chums up with a man who turns out to be Rognaas, the only man ever to take his side. At the height of their intense friendship Rognaas confesses that he was one of the bandits; his story absolves Berger of any taint of cowardice. But Berger cannot tell on his friend, even to justify himself to the whole world. Instead, he hits on a plan to justify himself to Lydersen, his chief antagonist, who has by now become a postmaster. On the evening when post office receipts are reckoned up, Berger calls at Lydersen's office. After a heated discussion in which Lydersen stoutly maintains his moral superiority over Berger, Berger suddenly draws a gun. Staring at death, Lydersen hands over the post office money. Then, smiling, Berger puts down the money and the unloaded gun. Vindicated at least in Lydersen's eyes, Berger returns happily to his wife, who, in naive admiration, wonders where he got the courage to play so desperate a trick.

The Author. Since 1915 a clerk in the post office of his native city, Drammen, Author Christiansen has had long to wait for anything more satisfying than critical acclaim. His first novel The Victor won the critics, sold only a few hundred copies. Subsequent plays and novels got high praise, but sales stayed low. Now all Scandinavia is reading Two Living and One Dead. Flawless in outline, crystal-clear as a Norwegian icicle, it deals with psychological subtleties at high tension with almost miraculous precision, without any witchcraft other than an immaculate literary conscience and a knifelike style.

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