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A Stricken Field
'If you could leave and know the terror and confusion was ended; if you could leave, and others who did not leave could remain behind in safety...'
Mary Douglas, an assured American, arrives in Prague in October of 1938, the days of disintegration following the Munich Pact, to find the city on the brink of blackout, transformed by fear. As the Gestapo net spreads wider, countless refugees--from Austria, Germany, Sudetenland--are forced to return: for many this will mean torture, concentration camp, death. In her hotel Mary greets other journalists who, like herself, cover international disasters and depart, their detachment intact. But through her friend Rita, a German refugee, Mary becomes passionately involved with the plight of the hunted victims of Nazi rule. First published in 1940, this powerful novel, written from the author's own experience, is a compelling record of one of the darkest moment's of Europe's history, and of the heroism of those who resisted the insane brutality of fascism.
Mary Douglas, an assured American, arrives in Prague in October of 1938, the days of disintegration following the Munich Pact, to find the city on the brink of blackout, transformed by fear. As the Gestapo net spreads wider, countless refugees--from Austria, Germany, Sudetenland--are forced to return: for many this will mean torture, concentration camp, death. In her hotel Mary greets other journalists who, like herself, cover international disasters and depart, their detachment intact. But through her friend Rita, a German refugee, Mary becomes passionately involved with the plight of the hunted victims of Nazi rule. First published in 1940, this powerful novel, written from the author's own experience, is a compelling record of one of the darkest moment's of Europe's history, and of the heroism of those who resisted the insane brutality of fascism.
313 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1940
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811 people want to read
About the author
Martha Gellhorn
65Ìýbooks298ÌýfollowersMartha Ellis Gellhorn (1908-1998) was an American novelist, travel writer and journalist. She is considered to be one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century. The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism is named after her.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
October 4, 2019
I see this has recently been brought back into print. Rightly so. Very powerful stuff indeed - the scenes with the refugee children and the scene of overheard torture in particular will live with me for a long while. At a time when the plight of refugees should be at the forefront of our minds, and when the danger of populism and fascism and all the rest is as clear and present as now, this deserves to be widely read.
The prose balances nicely between the novelistic and reportage. The truth of it all the clearer from the use of both.
If it was just a novel one could criticise some of the characterisation as a little flat and underdeveloped, for example, but that would be to miss the point. As a reporter frustrated that she could not get this information published in her articles, the urgency, the need, to communicate what she had seen takes precedent over any such niceties.
Very very highly recommended indeed.
The prose balances nicely between the novelistic and reportage. The truth of it all the clearer from the use of both.
If it was just a novel one could criticise some of the characterisation as a little flat and underdeveloped, for example, but that would be to miss the point. As a reporter frustrated that she could not get this information published in her articles, the urgency, the need, to communicate what she had seen takes precedent over any such niceties.
Very very highly recommended indeed.
July 28, 2021
Mr. Gellhorn's, "A Stricken Field," was written in 1938, but it wasn't published until 1985. It had very little to with the quality of the writing, which I thought was superb, but with the subject matter. The publishers were constantly running into articles about refugees, and Ms. Gellhorn's book was about the refugees who had to flee from the part of Czechoslovak they lived, which Hitler had annexed under the Big LIE that the Germans in the Sudetenland had been mistreated by the Jews, Communist, and socialist.
The refugees moved into Czechoslovak, into the the city of Prague, and were given very little time to find another country to live in or be send back to the Sudetenland where they would almost certainly be killed. Czechoslovak, for all practically purposes was ruled by the Gestapo, and the Czech. government followed the orders from the Gestapo.
It is under these circumstances that Mary Douglas, an American journalist with a conscience, tried to help these refugees get visas and passports and find another country for them to live in not under the control of the Germans, not a very easy task considering that Britain and France by this time sold their souls to the Germans in the hope of avoiding war.
This is a tragic novel and it is just another reminder of the brutality of the Germans, killing women and children, for absolutely no reason except that they were Jewish, Communist, or Socialist, and how the world's democracies turned their backs on these atrocious so as to appease Hitler and at a time they could of beat the Germans and possibly have stopped the slaughter tens of millions soldiers, civilians, the disabled and the elderly.
Ms. Gellhorn is probably the most famous female war correspondent of the 20th century, a great writer, and a person who could easily decipher the good guys from the bad, especially since that line wasn't so visible, until the war became a world war. I highly recommend.
The refugees moved into Czechoslovak, into the the city of Prague, and were given very little time to find another country to live in or be send back to the Sudetenland where they would almost certainly be killed. Czechoslovak, for all practically purposes was ruled by the Gestapo, and the Czech. government followed the orders from the Gestapo.
It is under these circumstances that Mary Douglas, an American journalist with a conscience, tried to help these refugees get visas and passports and find another country for them to live in not under the control of the Germans, not a very easy task considering that Britain and France by this time sold their souls to the Germans in the hope of avoiding war.
This is a tragic novel and it is just another reminder of the brutality of the Germans, killing women and children, for absolutely no reason except that they were Jewish, Communist, or Socialist, and how the world's democracies turned their backs on these atrocious so as to appease Hitler and at a time they could of beat the Germans and possibly have stopped the slaughter tens of millions soldiers, civilians, the disabled and the elderly.
Ms. Gellhorn is probably the most famous female war correspondent of the 20th century, a great writer, and a person who could easily decipher the good guys from the bad, especially since that line wasn't so visible, until the war became a world war. I highly recommend.
January 10, 2009
Prague is still a little safe, safe enough that Mary Douglas and other foreign correspondents can do work and drink whiskey, safe enough that the Sudeten German refugee population has not yet been expelled, safe enough that the communist party and relief organizations can be only semi-secret. Then that part of the prewar is over.
This book begins with a plane and ends with a plane. Mary frames the book in her reporter's view, shifting from interested observation to deepening personal involvement. She cannot completely understand the people's experience, even as she becomes involved in it. As an American, a reporter, a person with money, a passport, and a ticket out, she is strangely in power herself, though the Czech and Sudeten German people around her are nearly powerless.
Mary's power begins and ends with herself, her nationality, her profession. She does not have the power of full understanding, though she tries. She does not have the power to save or even find her targeted friends. This book is about finding power, the tiniest fraction of power, in a situation where there is no way and no hope left.
This book begins with a plane and ends with a plane. Mary frames the book in her reporter's view, shifting from interested observation to deepening personal involvement. She cannot completely understand the people's experience, even as she becomes involved in it. As an American, a reporter, a person with money, a passport, and a ticket out, she is strangely in power herself, though the Czech and Sudeten German people around her are nearly powerless.
Mary's power begins and ends with herself, her nationality, her profession. She does not have the power of full understanding, though she tries. She does not have the power to save or even find her targeted friends. This book is about finding power, the tiniest fraction of power, in a situation where there is no way and no hope left.
August 19, 2024
An interesting book but also very sad - the plight of the refugees was heartbreaking. Fell a bit flat in places but still worth a look at.
April 9, 2010
Gellhorn is best known for her war journalism (and also for having been married to Ernest Hemingway), but she also wrote short stories and several novels. A Stricken Field is set in Prague in 1938, when journalist Mary Douglas arrives from the United States to report, as the Germans take over. There, she encounters her friend Rita, a German refugee helping other refugees who are threatened with being forcibly returned to the areas under German control.
Gellhorn's depiction of the desperate refugees is chilling and powerful, and the plot absorbing, as Mary becomes more and more involved, emotionally and actively, with the plight of the refugees. It's probably better as war reporting than as a novel (though the bits with Rita and her lover Peter are nicely characterized, Mary is rather shallow), but it's well written and compelling.
Gellhorn's depiction of the desperate refugees is chilling and powerful, and the plot absorbing, as Mary becomes more and more involved, emotionally and actively, with the plight of the refugees. It's probably better as war reporting than as a novel (though the bits with Rita and her lover Peter are nicely characterized, Mary is rather shallow), but it's well written and compelling.
February 22, 2014
I love Martha Gellhorn's reporting, but this novel didn't quite live up to my expectations. I think in part it was fiction when Gellhorn's own non-fiction of the period was what I was used to, but as a stand alone novel I just felt something was missing.
That being said, A Stricken Field is an incredible World War II novel. While less experimental than other works I've read of the same period (like for example), Gellhorn captures a city in the slow descent into crisis. The characters tend to be rather stock (the heroine is an American journalist who is in over her head by the end, deciding whether or not to leave Prague after returning there on assignment, and there are plenty of sympathetic aid workers who are trying to get as many refugees out as possible), but this probably stems from Gellhorn lightly fictionalizing things she actually experienced when covering the war. There are hints of doomed romance, and at times it's oddly "Casablanca" in feel, but by the end the unique dark tone makes A Stricken Field a stand out in this sub genre of captured city World War II fiction.
I can't deny Gellhorn's chops as a journalist and the writing of this novel strongly reflects it. Overall, not the first of her work I'd recommend a new reader but definitely something for the World War II novel enthusiast or a current fan of Gellhorn's other work.
That being said, A Stricken Field is an incredible World War II novel. While less experimental than other works I've read of the same period (like for example), Gellhorn captures a city in the slow descent into crisis. The characters tend to be rather stock (the heroine is an American journalist who is in over her head by the end, deciding whether or not to leave Prague after returning there on assignment, and there are plenty of sympathetic aid workers who are trying to get as many refugees out as possible), but this probably stems from Gellhorn lightly fictionalizing things she actually experienced when covering the war. There are hints of doomed romance, and at times it's oddly "Casablanca" in feel, but by the end the unique dark tone makes A Stricken Field a stand out in this sub genre of captured city World War II fiction.
I can't deny Gellhorn's chops as a journalist and the writing of this novel strongly reflects it. Overall, not the first of her work I'd recommend a new reader but definitely something for the World War II novel enthusiast or a current fan of Gellhorn's other work.
March 1, 2015
Historically interesting as a 1940 artifact showing how much the West was being told of the horrors pf Nazi conquest. Gellhorn had sharp powers of observation, and could shape beautiful sentences. And just how horrible the Naxi plague was -- beginning, middle, and end, needs constant reminding. But -- as a novel, this falls very flat. The characters are one dimensional, the plot lacks subtlety or complexity.
November 26, 2011
This book is written by Martha Gellhorn who became a war correspondent/foreign news correspondent not by training but by incident of location. Gellhorn visited Prague in 1938 prior to the Munich Pact (or as those in Czechoslovakia at the time called it...the "Munich Decree" as Czechoslovakia was not a party to it wherein parts of its land (Sudentenland/a semi peripheral locality especially near Germany and with many Germans therein/of German character) was ceded from Czechoslovakia to Germany as an appeasement attempt as to Hitler) (Such cession allowed for the removal of strategic defense territory for Czechoslovakia and loss of much key industry/ In March 15, 1939 Germany did in fact invade the rest of the country (which resulted in leaving Poland susceptible to invasion/i.e. WWII). At any rate, Gellhorn who was then married to Hemmingway, was in Cuba thereafter when she wrote this novel. After seeing the fascism terror in Spain but finding that to close to the heart, and seeing the transformation of a proud Czecho to the humiliated and betrayed occupied nation, she wrote this novel regarding the refugees ' plight in Czechoslovakia. Part of the decree ordered refugees be evacuated and this is the focus of the story which has an American journalist in Prague witnessing the horrors of this decree. It is not particularly well written especially at first as one feels this less of a story and more of an information distribution (also largely its intent) (which indeed has serious merits especially in such times ) but the story line does get more interesting as it progresses. All in all, it is informative of an aspect of pre-WWII (the rise of Hitler and the encroachment (sans battles as of yet) into other European territory especially in light of its relative concurrent temporal perspective (written in 1939).
June 22, 2014
With the signing of the 1938 Munich Agreement, Nazi Germany annexed portions of Czechoslovakia inhabited by German speakers, an area that came to be known as the Sudetenland. A Stricken Field is a novel based on a week Martha Gellhorn spent in Prague in 1938. She had gone as a reporter on an assignment to interview President Benes, but got caught up in the plight of the refugees fleeing the German occupation. No longer citizens of Czechoslovakia, they were being forced to return to German controlled territory where they feared for their lives. While trying to write an objective piece on the effects of the Munich Agreement on the economy, she is confronted all around by the terrible problems of good citizens hiding and being forced to return to the brutal oppression of the Nazis.
She never wrote that news report. Instead she wrote this novel about two refugees Rita and Peter who, for a brief period of time, have found refuge in each other's love. Gellhorn is there too as Mary, an American reporter who observes a great injustice and is powerless to help.
Gellhorn admits she never read the published book until she had to write an Afterword to this 1985 edition. In that Afterword she concludes "I am proud of it. I am glad I wrote it. Novels can't 'accomplish' anything. Novels don't decide the course of history or change it but they can show what history is like for people who have no choice except to live through it or die from it. I remembered for them."
Today as Russia casts greedy eyes on eastern Ukraine and Russian-speaking Ukrainians seek to reunite with their homeland, this novel has a strangely modern relevance. Not that Putin is a new Hitler, but it points out the indifference and powerlessness of world governments to situations like these.
She never wrote that news report. Instead she wrote this novel about two refugees Rita and Peter who, for a brief period of time, have found refuge in each other's love. Gellhorn is there too as Mary, an American reporter who observes a great injustice and is powerless to help.
Gellhorn admits she never read the published book until she had to write an Afterword to this 1985 edition. In that Afterword she concludes "I am proud of it. I am glad I wrote it. Novels can't 'accomplish' anything. Novels don't decide the course of history or change it but they can show what history is like for people who have no choice except to live through it or die from it. I remembered for them."
Today as Russia casts greedy eyes on eastern Ukraine and Russian-speaking Ukrainians seek to reunite with their homeland, this novel has a strangely modern relevance. Not that Putin is a new Hitler, but it points out the indifference and powerlessness of world governments to situations like these.
June 23, 2020
Martha Gellhorn was an author and correspondent whose work covered the pre-WW2 and WW2 era, though she also wrote short stories and novels. In A Stricken Field, protagonist Mary Douglas is a journalist who spends a week in Prague in 1938 after Hitler was allowed to annex the Sudetenland, a portion of Czechoslovakia that bordered Germany. German refugees fleeing the Nazis found brief refuge in Prague before the Czech government forced them to return to Germany, likely to the concentration camps and later gas chambers of the Third Reich.
Mary Douglas, there to report on the resources that would soon fall to the Nazis ( coal and other minerals and goods ), instead pursues the story of these refugees in the days before their expulsion. Despite gathering first hand accounts of the cruel and heart wrenching stories coming out of Hitler's Germany, Douglas despairs that the papers - and the world - aren't interested in hearing the truth of the coming catastrophe. Layered on top of Mary's story is that of Rita, a refugee and friend of Mary's who is facing her own tragic fate as war looms ever closer. Through these two women, Gellhorn strives to portray the story from both the outsider and the insider perspective. The story is fast paced and gripping, frustrating and sad, keeping the reader hooked even though we know what must be coming. I highly recommend this book as a glimpse of the early, less well known chapter of Hitler's grasp for power and domination at all costs.
Mary Douglas, there to report on the resources that would soon fall to the Nazis ( coal and other minerals and goods ), instead pursues the story of these refugees in the days before their expulsion. Despite gathering first hand accounts of the cruel and heart wrenching stories coming out of Hitler's Germany, Douglas despairs that the papers - and the world - aren't interested in hearing the truth of the coming catastrophe. Layered on top of Mary's story is that of Rita, a refugee and friend of Mary's who is facing her own tragic fate as war looms ever closer. Through these two women, Gellhorn strives to portray the story from both the outsider and the insider perspective. The story is fast paced and gripping, frustrating and sad, keeping the reader hooked even though we know what must be coming. I highly recommend this book as a glimpse of the early, less well known chapter of Hitler's grasp for power and domination at all costs.
August 22, 2017
It's odd reading this book right now, taking everything personally, and finding that it seems to apply today. Terrifying. This is written from the safe few of a reporter--she feels her privilege every second. Around her the world is tearing apart and murdering so many, killing them slowly or quickly, and she feels both safe and frustrated at her inability to do anything to stop it. It takes more than one person.
Reading the Afterward, I learned new things about the onset of WWII, and the book itself was very new. I guess I haven't read much about some of the countries affected by invasion.
I'd like to be like Martha, or the character, and do something. If everyone did something, it might turn out differently. We'll see.
Reading the Afterward, I learned new things about the onset of WWII, and the book itself was very new. I guess I haven't read much about some of the countries affected by invasion.
I'd like to be like Martha, or the character, and do something. If everyone did something, it might turn out differently. We'll see.
August 12, 2024
Martha Gellhorn reported from Czechoslovakia in 1938 in the wake of the notorious Munich Agreement.
What followed was the annexation of "German speaking" Sudetenland by the National Socialists of Germany and their pro Nazi allies living in the region.
And subsequently the whole of Czechoslovakia was occupied, which threatened the lives of refugees from Germany; Jews, socialists, communists and liberals.
And in the process, the democratically minded Czechs felt betrayed by the western democracies.
This type of betrayal and non-intervention was keenly felt by Martha Gellhorn, who had witnessed the bloody struggle between Spain's democratically elected Republican government and Franco's military putschists, and the interventionist fascist Germany and Italy...she was thoroughly familiar with betrayal.
The "non-intervention" policy by western democracies sealed Spain's fate.
The novel "A Stricken Field" --published in 1940--provides an immediate subjective and heart wrenching look at Czechoslovakia's fate with lives in the balance.
What followed was the annexation of "German speaking" Sudetenland by the National Socialists of Germany and their pro Nazi allies living in the region.
And subsequently the whole of Czechoslovakia was occupied, which threatened the lives of refugees from Germany; Jews, socialists, communists and liberals.
And in the process, the democratically minded Czechs felt betrayed by the western democracies.
This type of betrayal and non-intervention was keenly felt by Martha Gellhorn, who had witnessed the bloody struggle between Spain's democratically elected Republican government and Franco's military putschists, and the interventionist fascist Germany and Italy...she was thoroughly familiar with betrayal.
The "non-intervention" policy by western democracies sealed Spain's fate.
The novel "A Stricken Field" --published in 1940--provides an immediate subjective and heart wrenching look at Czechoslovakia's fate with lives in the balance.
June 14, 2017
Being a fan of Ernest Hemingway, I have tended to disbelieve Martha Gelhorn's oft repeated statement that she wasn't stalking the author, but just ran into Papa in a bar in Key West. She wasn't looking to advance her career as a writer by seducing the world famous novelist, oh no! Well, who knows, was she an innocent ingenue or a calculating bitch? Don't know for sure so I figured I owed her an honest evaluation of her fiction.
It's a fine piece of writing. Written during the time Gelhorn and Hemingway's Cuban idyl it definitely shows his influence. It is chock a block with Hemingwayesq profundities: "But they seemed to her only pitifully, nakedly young, and strange because they were hunted and untamed like all very brave people." and "But disaster doesn't harm the really good ones: they carry their goodness through untouched and nothing that happens can make them cowardly or calculation."
There is a really good chapter dealing with torture. It is relatively bloodless as it doesn't descend into vivid description, but rather explains the Nazi perspective on those less than Aryan. The heroine, Mary Douglas, is a war reporter with her lover waiting in Paris, is a thinly disguised version of Gelhorn herself. The scene is Prague 1938 after England and France have handed Hitler the Sudatenland, effectively partitioning Czechoslovakia. Her attempt to get the French and British to delay the repatriation of German socialists and others back to Germany mirrors her own efforts.
Gelhorn sets out to and effectively portrays the dilemma of refugees in Eastern Europe prior to WWII and by extension their plight everywhere. A good book to read while we consider the situation in Syria. There's some silliness, but there's also some really good writing too.
It's a fine piece of writing. Written during the time Gelhorn and Hemingway's Cuban idyl it definitely shows his influence. It is chock a block with Hemingwayesq profundities: "But they seemed to her only pitifully, nakedly young, and strange because they were hunted and untamed like all very brave people." and "But disaster doesn't harm the really good ones: they carry their goodness through untouched and nothing that happens can make them cowardly or calculation."
There is a really good chapter dealing with torture. It is relatively bloodless as it doesn't descend into vivid description, but rather explains the Nazi perspective on those less than Aryan. The heroine, Mary Douglas, is a war reporter with her lover waiting in Paris, is a thinly disguised version of Gelhorn herself. The scene is Prague 1938 after England and France have handed Hitler the Sudatenland, effectively partitioning Czechoslovakia. Her attempt to get the French and British to delay the repatriation of German socialists and others back to Germany mirrors her own efforts.
Gelhorn sets out to and effectively portrays the dilemma of refugees in Eastern Europe prior to WWII and by extension their plight everywhere. A good book to read while we consider the situation in Syria. There's some silliness, but there's also some really good writing too.
October 5, 2013
Published New York March 1940, written [in Cuba] in 1939, based on one-month stay in Prague in June 1938.
To get an impression of life as a refugee anywhere, and/or life on the margins under a despotic regime, this book is as timely as any.
Painful to read the personal stories of refugees in Prague, forced by the new Nazi occupation to flee the country. I think Gellhorn succeeds in portraying the horrors realistically while allowing us enough distance or hope to keep reading. Omniscient narrator. The counterpoint to the refugees' experience is the interaction of the [privileged] group of foreign correspondents, of which the I person [= the author, more or less] was one.
We are given just a touch of political background, the reader will need to already know something of what was going on in Europe at that time.
Very very worthwhile to read. And it reads as very personal [and mostly is, I gather]. [Rosemary's copy]
I will be glad to read other work by Gellhorn, incl. her memoirs.
Penguin edition blurb:
"In 1934 she was hired by Harry Hopkins to report on how the Federal Emergency Relief program really
worked. The result: four linked novellas about Americans in the Depression, 'The Trouble I've Seen'."
To get an impression of life as a refugee anywhere, and/or life on the margins under a despotic regime, this book is as timely as any.
Painful to read the personal stories of refugees in Prague, forced by the new Nazi occupation to flee the country. I think Gellhorn succeeds in portraying the horrors realistically while allowing us enough distance or hope to keep reading. Omniscient narrator. The counterpoint to the refugees' experience is the interaction of the [privileged] group of foreign correspondents, of which the I person [= the author, more or less] was one.
We are given just a touch of political background, the reader will need to already know something of what was going on in Europe at that time.
Very very worthwhile to read. And it reads as very personal [and mostly is, I gather]. [Rosemary's copy]
I will be glad to read other work by Gellhorn, incl. her memoirs.
Penguin edition blurb:
"In 1934 she was hired by Harry Hopkins to report on how the Federal Emergency Relief program really
worked. The result: four linked novellas about Americans in the Depression, 'The Trouble I've Seen'."
May 17, 2021
There are few faults in the writing or plotting of this book. Martha Gellhorn combined her experience in journalism with a novelistic outlook, skillfully blending them into this work set in Czechoslovakia following the Nazi invasion into the Sudetenland. This is a nightmare land of oppression. People are hounded, murdered, tortured, and coerced in every part of the country, even those not under direct Nazi control. Within the broader story, there is a romance. This romance suffers, too, in the brokenness of an entire country.
So often, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia is a footnote to the Munich agreement in which it was given to Hitler to (temporarily) avoid war. The people, the terror, the Nazification: it is not a footnote. And the area has never recovered.
The novel is a unified story of history and the personal: it is a true novel. Gellhorn’s writing is best when assessing what one personally does, rationalizes, escapes to the comforts of a flight out of chaos. Personal blame is integral to life itself, she says, it is simply more visible in the raw places of history.
It is a story well worth reading.
So often, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia is a footnote to the Munich agreement in which it was given to Hitler to (temporarily) avoid war. The people, the terror, the Nazification: it is not a footnote. And the area has never recovered.
The novel is a unified story of history and the personal: it is a true novel. Gellhorn’s writing is best when assessing what one personally does, rationalizes, escapes to the comforts of a flight out of chaos. Personal blame is integral to life itself, she says, it is simply more visible in the raw places of history.
It is a story well worth reading.
Want to read
August 31, 2017" it does get one thing right about Martha Gellhorn: She cared far more about chasing the story than she ever cared about the men in her life, famous or otherwise. It’s her fidelity to the story and the ordinary people swept up in historical events � particularly victims of the “evil stupidity� of nations at war, the “lies and chicanery� of statecraft and the global propaganda machine � that make Gellhorn’s novel “A Stricken Field� (1940) essential reading for the political moment we’re living through today. Set in Prague at the beginning of the war, a “dead city� in the process of being abandoned to Hitler by the rest of Europe in exchange for “peace in our time,� the novel follows an American journalist named Mary Douglas as she confronts a simmering refugee crisis in the proud, urbane capital of a liberal democracy. "
October 1, 2017
Written by a reporter and based on her experiences in Prague in 1938 in the form of a novel. I would recommend it but at the same time it is such a distressing read documenting the situation in Czechoslovkia between the annexation of the Sudeten lands and the outbreak of WW2. The book is written with the passion and fervour of a young woman bearing witness to what she has seen and what she sees (the almost hopeless situation of Czechoslovakia, the terrible suffering of displaced people) is hard to read. Even worse is that we can see equivalences in our own time
September 14, 2017
I've never had a book stay with me for so long after reading it. It's been over two months since I finished, and it keeps haunting me - as if there's more story left to tell. Perhaps this is the case with all wartime narratives. I've read others. But Gellhorn's voice and characters keep tugging at me. They won't let me forget.
August 29, 2015
A fine novel that places a personal face on the sad dismemberment of the Czech Republic during the early days of WW II. As always, a longer version of this review may be found at: .
Peace.
Mark
Peace.
Mark
March 2, 2017
A novel of the fall of Czechoslovakia in the years before World War II. It was written by a correspondent who was there. It is an excellent portrayal - history only thinly disguised as fiction. The author covered The Spanish Civil War, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
August 4, 2017
A moving story, brilliantly told by the author who witnessed firsthand the aftermath of the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by Britain and France at Munich. One of the greatest war correspondents of all time, Martha Gellhorn was, in my view, a much better writer than that guy she married in 1940.
November 18, 2017
Written in 1940 by a well known war correspondent, this novel is timeless in its story of WWII Prague. Desperation seeps from the pages as Czechoslovakia is occupied by Nazi forces. I started it reluctantly at the request of a friend and quickly became engaged.
September 9, 2017
"Not that evil stupidity ended in 1938; the supply remains plentiful, with no end in sight."
March 27, 2019
Gellhorn is not the world's greatest stylist, but no book by her I've read so far is totally devoid of merit. This one is especially significant as a document since it is a barely fictionalized account of the few days she spent in Prague in October 1938. Thinly disguised as Mary Douglas, she describes her futile but principled attempt to have have the High Commissioner for Refugees beg a 2-week extension of the expulsion order of the millions of refugees who had fled Germany, Austria or the Sudetenland for the comparative safety of the Czech capital. One refugee, a young Communiste named Rita, is particularly dear to Mary, who tries very hard to get her out. However, what Mary doesn't know is that after seeing her lover Peter tortured to death by the Gestapo, Rita has chosen to forsake her life and let herself be taken to prison. In the end, all Mary can do for the numerous desperate people who appeal to her for help is smuggle out of Prague a genuine account of the multiple violations of human rights that have been committed and pledge to get some contacts in Paris to take action. Gellhorn published this book in 1940 and she didn't mince her words about the cowardly attitude of the French and the British in front of Hitler's takeover of Czechoslovakia. Thank God for Gellhorn.
March 9, 2019
What a book! I finished this book in 2 sittings because I found it compelling.
Gellhorn's reputation is mainly of course as a war correspondent and secondarily as Hemingway's third wife.
This book is fiction, based on Gellhorn's own experiences from observing war first-hand. She places it in Czechoslovakia, and she draws from having been in both Spain during the civil war and in the Czech Republic in 1938. It was published in 1940.
There are many messages, in my mind, in this book. She illustrates the life of the refugee in Europe at the time, the dilemma (and range of emotions) of the journalist who is supposed to be "detached", the futility of war, the way democracy gets destroyed and the idiocy of politicians.
In the afterword, Gellhorn says "Novels can't "accomplish" anything. Novels don't decide the course of history or change it but they can show what history is like for people who have no choice except to live through it or die from it. I remembered for them".
It's a sobering read for sure. Disturbing. And yet it deepens our understanding and world-view, which to me is invaluable.
Gellhorn's reputation is mainly of course as a war correspondent and secondarily as Hemingway's third wife.
This book is fiction, based on Gellhorn's own experiences from observing war first-hand. She places it in Czechoslovakia, and she draws from having been in both Spain during the civil war and in the Czech Republic in 1938. It was published in 1940.
There are many messages, in my mind, in this book. She illustrates the life of the refugee in Europe at the time, the dilemma (and range of emotions) of the journalist who is supposed to be "detached", the futility of war, the way democracy gets destroyed and the idiocy of politicians.
In the afterword, Gellhorn says "Novels can't "accomplish" anything. Novels don't decide the course of history or change it but they can show what history is like for people who have no choice except to live through it or die from it. I remembered for them".
It's a sobering read for sure. Disturbing. And yet it deepens our understanding and world-view, which to me is invaluable.
June 2, 2020
3.5 stars. As one of her reviewers said at the time, great reporting but a so-so novel. A fictionalised account of her experiences in Prague after the Munich Agreement in 1938. Mary Douglas, a barely-disguised-at-all version of the author, joins her fellow liberal journalists in Czechoslovakia as part of their tour of trouble spots of the world (she frankly refers to herself and friends as "ambulance chasers"). There she is confronted by the grim reality of the situation for refugees from both the Sudetenland itself and political refugees who have previously fled to democratic Czechoslovakia from the Nazis' growing empire, including some old friends. She makes a desperate attempt to help buy time for the most vulnerable to escape but encounters indifference and sometimes frank hostility from the browbeaten and betrayed Czech authorities. A compassionate and humane book - but scathing about the failure of democratic governments in France, Britain and the US to support their client state against aggression. Hopefully Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier got a copy for Christmas.
April 26, 2023
A most eminently readable book about about being in a terrible place at a terrible time, with the varying horrors of different people in different situations viscerally portrayed. 'A Stricken Field' is written partly from the pov of an American journalist, Mary Douglas, who is in Prague to cover developments following the takeover of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis in October 1938. She becomes friends with Rita, a German Refugee - and the other central voice of the novel - as she expresses concern for her self, her friends - and particularly her lover - as many become the hunted victims of the Nazi regime. The novel thus permits many varied viewpoints, as the full horrors of Nazi rule spread, until most characters are faced with either fight or flight, or fight and death.
I'm planning to read more by Gellhorn... such a shame that she is often only seen as one of the wives of Ernest Hemingway. I'm currently also reading Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' as our Reading Group book, and do wish that EH had learned something of Gellhorn's beautiful brevity.
I'm planning to read more by Gellhorn... such a shame that she is often only seen as one of the wives of Ernest Hemingway. I'm currently also reading Hemingway's 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' as our Reading Group book, and do wish that EH had learned something of Gellhorn's beautiful brevity.
September 6, 2018
I don't know a lot about the refugee crisis in Eastern Europe on the eve of WWII so, for me, this was a different take on WWII historical fiction. More background knowledge (on my part) on the setting would have been helpful, as the story confused me at times, and while I wouldn't rate it the most fantastic of fiction, I do think it's very much worth reading for the realistic underpinnings of it. It's particularly interesting for having been a warning, published in 1940, of the cruelty of the Nazi regime and its henchmen (both knowing and blind) and the folly of thinking compromise was possible. Nothing about this is a light read, and there is one torture scene that I found particularly hard to read, but I'm glad to have read it. I wish the issues it touches upon so compellingly weren't as applicable to current events worldwide as they are.
February 4, 2020
Growing up, Martha Gellhorn was one of my heroines. This novel first published in the early 1940's is considered one of her best. Having just read Allende's book about refugees from Spain I found this fascinating. Gellhorn has just left reporting on the war in Spain and travels to Prague in 1938 just before the Munich Pact. She meets up with fellow reporters(and they were all fellows) and makes contact with a group of refugees fighting against the Nazi's. This is not an easy book to read but a good look at what happens when a nation gives in to an oppressor. There is an afterward written by the author in 1985 with even more insight into a problem that continues to repeat over and over.
June 8, 2018
Why do I read books that are almost too horrible to read? Maybe because the best of them make me feel the pain and the power of war, and the ability (and inability) to turn a blind eye towards despIcable and inexplicable acts. Wars are usually descried in terms of grand acts. Five thousand casualties. Collateral damage. The rules of engagement. This is a major book about small and infinitely deep and personal events, the plight of non-Nazi Germans from the Sudetenland who fled to Prague, and later were rounded up and forced to return to suffering, concentration camps, torture and death. No one cared about them. It wasn’t convenient. Some things don’t change.
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