THE TIME OF OUR LIVES

THE TIME OF OUR LIVES by Martine Rouchaud; Published by Pantheon, New York, 1946. A faithful description of family life under the German occupation, the family was not involved in the Resistance and was fortunate in having minimum contact with the Boche, it is essentially a record of changes of residence (determined largely by food conditions), life oil a farm, lessons, children s games, and food-purchasing expeditions throughout the French countryside. The only dramatic pages are the last twenty, describing the arrival of the first Americans and the family s return to Paris.All this could easily be dull, but is in fact far from dull. Martine Rouchaud is completely successful in communicating to the reader the exuberance, the vitality, and the gayety of youth which transformed the harassments and privations of the occupation into exhilarating adventure. You share wholeheartedly in her fun as she wheedles eggs out of grouchy farmers, plays pranks on her stuffy relatives, and demurely trips up swaggering Nazis in a crowded railway station. "jacket wear and tear, some light cloth wear, inside clean tight and very good".…