While having been compared to some of the literary greats, Hassel’s style is unique, in it’s flowing, picturesque imagery. He uses satire and humor to deflect or perhaps pause the nature described in these novels. But more than anything, it is possibly the humanity he brings out over and over again, that beautifully steers the moral compass, of these novels. Here’s a little excerpt from MONTE CASSINO:
“We were in Milan being re-equipped. We drifted round while the others did the work. We threw our weight about in Biffi and Gran Italia, having rows with officers of different nationalities. They couldn’t stand us, because we smelled of death and talked in vulgarly loud voices, but we made friends with Radi, the waiter. He composed our menus. That was at Biffi opposite La Scala. In the galleries and terrace cafes we drank fresa, which has a wonderful taste of strawberries.
Heide and Barcelona had a fit of megalomania. They went to La Scala every night. They thought that was the right thing to do, for anybody who was anybody in Milan went there.
I fell in love. You do, when you drink fresa at one of the small tables in the galleries. She was twenty. I wasn’t much older. Her father kicked her out, when he found us in bed; but when he saw my uniform he turned pleasant. It was the same with most people in Europe in those days, at all events as long as we were within sight and hearing, they were as pleasant as could be.
I decided I was going to desert, but unfortunately I got drunk on fresa again with its lovely taste of strawberries and confided in Porta. After that they would not let me go out alone any more. Deserting was a stupidity that could have unpleasant repercussions on one’s friends.
We played a football match with an Italian infantry team. The game was a draw because both spectators and the two teams began fighting.
When they chucked us out of Biffi’s, we fornicated behind the pillars in the galleries and then drank ourselves silly with the ack-ack gunners on the roof.
People said there was a lot of unrest in Milan, but we never noticed any. Perhaps that was because we were drinking chianti and fresa with the partisans.
When Biffi closed, we often went back to Radi’s. He lived in a basement that had patches of damp on the walls and springs protruding from the mouldy seats of the chairs.
Radi would take off his shoes and pour mineral water over his feet. He said it helped them.”