Word: kenelm
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Some time before he made this unusual choice, British Colonel John Wallis had shoved a .45 into his mouth and blown his brains out. As a barrister on the British commission investigating war crimes, he had helped hang German General von Kenelm; Wallis' overwhelming sense of guilt had pulled the trigger. So, in British Anthony West's first novel, The Vintage, Wallis is first seen on a mortuary slab. The rest of the book tells of his guilt-and conscience-plagued pilgrimage through the purgatory of which Cape Sable is a part...
What becomes more important than either world is West's exploration of Wallis' guilt-stabbed consciousness and the whole problem of man's.moral responsibility for his conduct. Ironically, Wallis' assigned partner through purgatory is General von Kenelm, his legal victim. He too reveals his past: that of a ruthlessly ambitious soldier who first murdered his best friend and then whole masses of people. At first, true to his nature, Kenelm is willing to settle for a soft spot on Cape Sable. In the end, like Wallis, he feels the need to exorcise his evil conscience...