A tragic symphony in five movements

The heroine of this night, I saw, Veronika, a slight woman is like a bubble, cheeky, whimsical, loving life. But God that recklessness does not fit well in times of crisis, when the war is here, in this Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia while the guerrillas invest forests inspired by a Tito who proclaimed himself marshal. Five votes succeed in the novel Drago Jancar to evoke Veronika. They lover, mother, friend, domestic. And they all loved, each in their own way. How could it have been otherwise? It was one of those which could not but admire the grace, freedom and sensuality. The novel is like a tragic symphony in five movements for a destiny upset by the war that makes no gift innocence. What has happened this night in January 1944 when Veronika and her husband left their home, never to reappear? Jancar, with a mastered art, distills the information in dribs and drabs, each complementing and illuminating the previous story until the denouement. It was a troubled time in Slovenia, as elsewhere in Europe, where the line between collaboration and resistance with the occupier was sometimes very blurred. Intense and hairline, Drago Jancar book stands out for its style and restrained emotion.