Books: Sadistic Sailors

HORNS FOR OUR ADORXMEXT—Aksel Sandemose—Knopf ($2.50).

An ex-sailor and lumberjack. Aksel Sandemose is a 39-year-old Danish novelist who has been acclaimed and anathematized in much the same terms as James Joyce, Celine, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka. Like them, he follows a realism that is epic and allegorical rather than photographic. Two years ago Sandemose was introduced to U. S. readers with a powerful, puzzling story called A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks. Acknowledging Sandemose's originality, critics called him less original than Joyce, less obscure than Kafka and Rilke, less cynical than Celine.

Tender-skinned...