Defender of the Faith
Critique • Quotes
Collection first edition, 1959First publication
1959
Literature form
Story
Genres
Literary
Writing language
English
Author's country
United States
Length
Approx. 9,500 words
Notable lines
In May of 1945, only a few weeks after the fighting had ended in Europe, I was rotated back to the States, where I spent the remainder of the war with a training company at Camp Crowder, Missouri.
— First line
In fact, I indulged myself in a reverie so strong that I felt as though a hand were reaching very far to touch me! It had to reach past those days in the forests of Belgium and past the dying I'd refused to weep over; past the nights in German farmhouses whose books we'd burned to warm us; past endless stretches when I had shut off all softness I might feel for my fellows, and had managed even to deny myself the posture of a conqueror—the swagger that I, as a Jew, might well have worn as my boots whacked against the rubble of Wesel, Münster, and Braunschweig.
And then, resisting with all my will an impulse to turn and seek pardon for my vindictiveness, I accepted my own.
— Last line
Critique • Quotes
