Not much has happened [by the end of Salt of the Earth]. But it is the way in which the story is told that will hold the reader captive. Joseph Wittlin is a master of intensive characterization. Gifted with an endless love for the distressed and heavy laden, for the "little man," he knows how to bring his hero unforgettably before the reader…. His prose is poetically beautiful and powerful. His metaphors are finished in their artistry. And he has another gift that is not too common. He is possessed of a delicate humor which brightens even the most tragic moments without ever growing banal. The patient infantryman Peter Niewiadomski … will doubtless take his place with immortal creations like the "good soldier Schwejk" or his predecessors, the private soldiers in Tolstoi's War and Peace.