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ALL THY CONQUESTS
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 10, 2023
An occasionally smart, occasionally clumsy construction, Alfred Hayes' first novel from 1946 shows an author who had a good eye but did not yet know where to train his lens. Like its superior successor The Girl on the Via Flaminia, released the following year, All Thy Conquests takes place in the noirish nights of Rome in 1944, a few months after the Allies have liberated it from the Germans. Both conquerors and conquered have become disillusioned; sexual politics and shame have become potent, and no one throws flowers any more. "Now when a girl smiled she was hustling" (pg. 99). But whereas Via Flaminia flourished in this setting by focusing on the dynamics of one American soldier and his compromised Italian bed-mate, All Thy Conquests dilutes itself.
The novel follows three different American soldiers in similar situations to the one in Via Flaminia, though none of those three seem to differ greatly in their characterisation. Hayes also attempts to have their stories intersect, but they never do so with any purpose, and there is also another story of a native Fascist mayor who is tried and then lynched by the townspeople because he helped facilitate a German reprisal. This should be fascinating, but it never flows well with the other stories, which are themselves unremarkable. Whereas The Girl on the Via Flaminia's clarity is intoxicating due to its focus, All Thy Conquests' is bewildering due to its looseness. Only one of the two novels can be recommended, and unfortunately it is not the one reviewed here.
The novel follows three different American soldiers in similar situations to the one in Via Flaminia, though none of those three seem to differ greatly in their characterisation. Hayes also attempts to have their stories intersect, but they never do so with any purpose, and there is also another story of a native Fascist mayor who is tried and then lynched by the townspeople because he helped facilitate a German reprisal. This should be fascinating, but it never flows well with the other stories, which are themselves unremarkable. Whereas The Girl on the Via Flaminia's clarity is intoxicating due to its focus, All Thy Conquests' is bewildering due to its looseness. Only one of the two novels can be recommended, and unfortunately it is not the one reviewed here.
February 23, 2024
That good.
Hayes first novel apparently made an impression when it was published (as well it should have) but you won't have an easy time getting your hands on a copy today. All the soulful intelligence, the marvels of voice that you'll find in his later work (happily resurrected by the NYRB re-issue series) is here ... along with a startling innocence and compassion. ALL THY CONQUESTS truly is a definitive treasure. Post war Rome, its men and women, Italians and Americans alike limned in the clarity of a striking moment in time: the end of one half-century, the dawn of another.
Hayes first novel apparently made an impression when it was published (as well it should have) but you won't have an easy time getting your hands on a copy today. All the soulful intelligence, the marvels of voice that you'll find in his later work (happily resurrected by the NYRB re-issue series) is here ... along with a startling innocence and compassion. ALL THY CONQUESTS truly is a definitive treasure. Post war Rome, its men and women, Italians and Americans alike limned in the clarity of a striking moment in time: the end of one half-century, the dawn of another.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews