Word: sword
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THEY THAT TAKE THE SWORD-Nicholas Kalashnikoff-Harper...
...autobiographical first novel of a Russian ex-revolutionist and army officer who escaped to the U. S. in 1924, They That Take the Sword is a simply-told, convincing, first-person marathon (717 pages). It traces the career of an idealistic, dynamic, personable young Siberian peasant who ran away at 16 to become a "Russian Lincoln." He became leader of a terrorist group, was exiled to Siberia, rose to a captaincy during the War, commanded both Red and White troops in the civil war, narrowly escaped "liquidation" when he grew disgusted with both sides...
They That Take the Sword not only has a good chance of success because of new interest in 20th-Century Russian history, but also stands out as a good novel in its own right. It tells its bloody epic through plausible human (and inhuman) characters. Its hero, Sergei Kuskov, is human in his contradictions. He coolly plans the assassination of Tsarist generals and police, but is tormented by puritanical scruples in his love affairs. A deadly foe of Tsarism, he nevertheless wins a medal for his zeal as a railroad construction boss, becomes a patriot in the War, gets...
...this portrait, Sergei (like other characters in the book) has more of the Russian character as portrayed by Tolstoy and Dostoevski than of that played up by Soviet fiction. Soviet critics explain that Russians have changed, grown cheerful, hygienic, machine-minded, athletic, non-acquisitive. They That Take the Sword suggests that the Russian character survives more stubbornly than any Soviet official confesses...
...Long Island, American Bullfighter Sidney Franklin, decked out in cerise cape and a sheathed wooden sword, got ready to put on a bull-dodging act for a New York World's Fair rodeo. On hand were representatives of the S. P. C. A., 200 spectators, a bull in a corral. When somebody opened the gate to the corral, nothing happened. To attract the bull's attention cowboys did a dance in front of the gate. The bull didn't budge. Steers were driven into the chute as decoys. The bull looked the other way. Twenty minutes later...