Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993 TAG: 9306270182
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by JAMES LEEDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Good German can prove a fascinating character in World War II era suspense fiction.
In "Winter Fire," award-winning historian William R. Trotter builds an intellectually sophisticated and emotionally sympathetic character in Erich Ziegler, a one-time symphonic conductor now conducting the affairs of war as a Lieutenant in the German army.
We first meet Ziegler on the Murmansk front, fighting off frostbite in the sub-arctic region where many German troops froze to death during Germany's long war against Bolshevism. Ziegler is a member of the Second Mountain Division, an elite Alpine ski unit living in miserable conditions and fighting a seemingly pointless battle in which men, machines, and horses all eventually succumb to the cold.
Ziegler has the good fortune of being transferred when he is assigned to Finland, Germany's unlikely ally against the Russians, as a liaison officer without portfolio, a sort of spy in military uniform. In a series of episodes that flash back to Erich's childhood, his father's lessons, his musical career, and forward to his current assignment maintaining military relations with Finland, we see Erich Ziegler as a proud, patriotic, ethical, cultured victim of a senseless, barbaric military conflict. Ziegler's only consolation rests in his father's last words: "when there are barbarians everywhere, you must pick something to stand for and then be willing to fight for it."
These words resonate throughout the novel as Ziegler struggles with his personal desires, his love of music, and his intimate relationship with Finland.
In his new posting as military liaison, Ziegler ingratiates himself to the Finnish officers. They in turn teach Erich the art of guerrilla warfare on skis. On at least one occasion Ziegler's Finnish comrades-in-arms save his life during an ill-fated patrol. Ziegler then gets what he considers the opportunity of a lifetime when he meets famed conductor Jean Sibelius at his retreat in the woods and it is here that Trotter's novel comes to life.
The woods are a mythological muse to Sibelius, and the composer's work becomes a sort of spiritual obsession with Ziegler, who reads the symphonies and yearns to conduct them. Ziegler soon develops more corporeal yearnings for one of the composer's house servants, and soon the lives of all these intricately drawn characters are inextricably bound together in passion and mystery.
Ziegler continues to report to his superiors on the cultural climate of Finland and their relations toward Germany. Amidst his snow bound battles with Russians, his delirious conducting of Sibelius' symphonies in the forest, his encounters with forest shamans, and his visit to the forest rune-singer, Ziegler becomes more and more a creature of the forest and culturally acclimated toward Finland. Then, quite unexpectedly, he is called to conduct a selection of music, both German and Finnish, before the Fuhrer himself.
It is Ziegler's selection of music and the anti-semitic outrage it produces among the Nazis that proves his military undoing and causes his complete mental breakdown. Left with virtually nothing to abide him, save for Sibelius' mysterious, unfinished eighth symphony, Ziegler follows his own muse to his destiny in the forest.
"Winter Fire" is William R. Trotter's first foray into fiction. His intimate knowledge of the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940 helps provide ample authenticity to this panoramic, fully realized tale of love and war, magic and music, and the muses of the forest.
James Leeds is a free-lance writer in Washington, DC.
by CNB