Gossip from the Forest, by Thomas Keneally (Harcourt, 220 pp., $8.95). Taking a bold idea and executing it with precision and brilliance, Keneally has vividly rendered those gloomy days leading up to the signing of the 1918 armistice at Compiegne, France. Although it is a novel, written mostly in dialogue, the book offers penetrating historical insight into the World War I era as well as into the character of those obstinate Europeans who met in a misty forest to negotiate (using the term loosely) an end to the shooting. There was old Marshal Foch, the imperious, tidy-living Frenchman whose central motive was seeing Germany squirm; Britain’s Admiral Wemyss, whose narrow devotion to the Royal Navy practically blinded him to events on the Continent, not to mention their cataclysmic significance; and poor old Matthias Erzberger, the social and political climber who rose up through the Reichstag all the way to this dramatic assignment, an assignment that he feared—correctly, it turned out—would lead to his destruction. Just as Foch and Wemyss were the great victors in the war, so were they the victors at this charade as they trampled over the hapless Erzberger and his vanquished nation. It’s easy to become just a little incensed, but this is no morality play; it’s a study of personality, motive, and human interaction at the vortex of great events. What’s more, it conveys a haunting sense of the tragedy of Europe in the twentieth century, a tragedy that is still unfolding but was vividly symbolized by the events of World War I. This book is a literary— and historical—success, and it deserves some attention; alas, more than it seems to be getting. But what can one reasonably expect? It’s tough these days, what with the competition from such literary lights as Spiro Agnew and John Ehrlichman.
ROBERT W. MERRY
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