[In Raditzer we find] a character distinct from those in literature, yet one who has somehow figured, if but hauntingly, in the lives of us all. It is, in certain ways, as though a whole novel had been devoted to one of Algren's sideline freaks, a grotesque and loathsome creature—yet seen ultimately, as sometimes happens in life, as but another human being….

We see Raditzer, the ordinary seaman, mostly through the eyes of Charles Stark, his shipmate and reluctant mentor, abroad the U.S.S. General Pendleton in Pacific waters, late 1944. Stark is that sane and perceptive fellow who used to be played by Herbert Marshall in the movies but who frequently recurs, somewhat younger now, as first-person narrator in New Yorker short stories—a cardboard figure and a pretty dull tool actually, with his flagrantly self-conscious "reasonableness" and "normalcy," and his finger-deep introspection. Stark is, in short, a literary ideal; he represents the reader. (p. 170)

Raditzer attaches himself to Stark, and the latter, much to the ire and consternation of the rest of the crew, tolerates the imposition—though, granted, with a rather formidable ambivalence. Raditzer's general demeanor might be described as gregariously anti-social; he is so obsessed with the ugliness others see in him that he is in a constant drive to assert it tenfold—groping desperately, one might believe, for alienation … hatred … punishment. The greater interest in such a case as Raditzer, however, does not rest with any standard or complex Freudian equation explaining him, but lies in the emotional Rorschach he evokes in others. That is to say, shall we kill him?

Close readers will follow an excellent and updated Christ story in Raditzer, though this is not to suggest that the tale be limited to allegory, any more than should, say Miss Lonelyhearts…. [The] novel's best reading, certainly, is not as allegory, but as character portrayal—the familiar face, that strange and furtive face seen somewhere long ago beneath brief lamplight … in the army barracks, a subway toilet, the last row of a Times Square movie … a rare bird and a very ugly one. But then is it really ugly after all? Perhaps what we sometimes see as "ugly"—in nature, in life, in the human condition—is but the unhappily twisted reflection of a much closer source.

Finally, of course, the book, like all good things alas, is not without fault. There is a great deal in it that is forced, especially at the beginning; much of the dialogue is wooden; the peripheral characters seem unduly dull and inconsequential, though perhaps here all must pale alongside the real-life stench of the hero; and lastly, the book is almost totally lacking in outward drama and suspense. This last fault is a serious one for a book of its format. It is well enough for coarse works of yesteryear's colors to pound along, fat and tardy, but novels of contemporary form should enjoy, above all, sharpness of pace and event. However, one must not cavil; wine, salad and cheese are not essential, surely, to the starving faced with a two-pound T-bone. (pp. 170-71)