I AM LAZARUS by Berlin, Sven

New York, 1961, Norton, First US edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6 x 8 1/2, VG/.Good+, ( dust jacket has numerous small chips and tears , spine sun faded), 209 pages, 8 drawings & several maps by the author. 1 Am Lazarus is a passionate, enlarging story of battle. Here is a man, a painter, and a fine writer too, who began his war as a conscientious objector, and then moved across his own fences into the narrow, absorbing, boring, maddening, exciting life of a soldier in the ranks. He became part of a forward observation team for a heavy-artillery regiment under Montgomery, and with it traversed Europe from Normandy to the German border.There is in his account the exploration of self in battle, the ceaseless lonely conquest of fear, the growing knowledge of other and different men. Throughout there is an extraordinarily effective interweaving of the author's outward experiences - descriptions of battle, of refugees, of places, of friends, of sudden brief moments of peace and joy as well as of frustration and sickening fear - with the development of his inner life, that dialogue of the soul with itself which is perhaps man's most distinctive achievement.A number of the author's drawings, made at the time, add an extra dimension to the writing, so that the reader is carried forward on many levels into an altogether extraordinary reading experience.