"A work of rare and exceptional quality"
TOIL OF MEN
(MENSCHENWEE)
By ISRAEL QUERIDO
In praise of Querido's Menschenwee, a novel that recalls both the work of Balzac and of Zola, the authoritative critical journals of Europe have spoken with one voice.
To refrain from superlatives in speaking of Menschenwee would be an impertinent recalcitrancy to the critical judgment of Europe. Let us hasten then to assert that this great and impassioned novel, bringing together a wide range of characters—mostly toilers who live close to the soil—and making us live by sympathy the hard life of the fields, combines a convincing and relentless realistic observation with the true sympathetic method of the idealist. In imaginative and creative power, in the masterly descriptive faculty everywhere evinced, in its compelling dramatic interest, in its surprising blend of conflicting passions and sentiments, alike by its hate, raillery, irony, and indignation, by its tenderness, pity, and melancholy, Menschenwee has been hailed as a work of rare and exceptional quality, that is entitled to hold the attention of thinkers and lovers of literature the world over.
Querido, the author of the novel, is a native of Amsterdam, and comes of a titled Portuguese family long settled in that city. The ardor of his temperament, his culture, his learning, the strength of his intellect, and the range of his sympathies entitle him to the place he now holds in the world of letters.
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