Roger Pulvers

But I would have liked to have, to know a little bit even more about

katarina trubitskaya who is along with paul bauer the main character and towards the end of the novel even comes out as much more of a main character but uh that's his choice and that's fine so you know it depends what what readers like when they they read a novel but the the it's interesting that you mentioned metz because he's also sort of freaked out by he thinks there are ghosts in the in this in this estate and uh

a little bit of the supernatural there.

There's even a seance scene.

But the main theme there is that this Paul Bauer, this surgeon who's very sensitive and dedicated to human welfare and to bringing back people from the edge, soldiers and so on, he begins to question how do you maintain yourself as a decent human being in barbaric times?

And I found this theme very interesting and

very contemporary, you know, people who are caught up in a war, an unjust war.

And it doesn't only happen in Germany and Japan.

It's happened with the United States and Australia and the war in Vietnam and lots of other countries where you have to make a choice of what are you going to do?

You know, do you obey orders or do you and how can you

be a human being.

Yeah, very successfully.

There are lots of references to Tolstoy, not so much that he goes into the plot itself, but if an individual is a part of a nation, say Paul Bauer, the nation of Germany, and Katerina Trubitskaya of Russia or the Soviet Union, we live in our nation, we kill for our nation, but are we as individuals a part of that nation?

Are we responsible for what that nation does?

I think that this novel actually takes up that question and puts it in a very interesting perspective in the relationship between the two main characters.

And the main question is, to put it in cliche form, not to say that the novel is in any way cliche, will love conquer all?

And I don't know, how did you feel about their contemporary references, the

several times the novel jumps to the post-war period in the 60s and the 70s.

And we find out what happened to the main characters.

I'm certainly not going to say what it is.