Books: Poles Apart

FROM DAY TO DAY—Ferdinand Goetel— Viking ($2.50).

Few authors have hit on a cleverer or more effective scheme for telling a story than Author Goetel's. His book starts in the form of a diary written by Stanislaw, Cracow novelist. The Cracow he inhabits is a city of postWar, united, republican Poland, but before the War it belonged to Austria. Stanislaw, a man without a country, fought for the Austrians against his Russian-Polish compatriots.

In the diary Stanislaw tells of the story he is about to write based on his experiences as a war-prisoner in Turkestan....