Man's Hope

Days of Hope is Malraux's powerful renedering of the 1930's spanish civil war.Malraux focuses on the republicans sense of valour and justice in the face of the fascist forces. Nonetheless this is one of the most balanced novels to emerge from the spanish conflict.The text moves with vigor from one area of conflict to another. In the air, tank assaults and infantry battles are all dealt with in prose of heart rending beauty and majesty. He portrays real heroism and its absusdity. The tension in the novel is maintained by the conflict between man's capacity to discover himself in violent expereince and the ridiculousness of violence itself. The book follows the lives of two main characters, Manuel, a communist labourer who becomes a colonel, and Magnin, an ex airline pilot, now commander of the International Air Force. There are other characters all beautifully and serenly drawn by Malraux. These are flesh and blood men,grappling with the moral and political ambiguities of their situation, believing, thinking, killing and dying. This book can bring one to tears, an honest imaginative evocation of the civil war and an important 20th century novel in every way. Inexplicable that it remains out of print in English.