[Nadine Gordimer] traces in her stories a shift in subject-matter from earlier paternalism to the multiracial dreams of the Fifties and on to the disillusioned legacy of white (and black) liberalism in the Seventies…. A Soldier's Embrace extends the historical process, with characteristic fierce irony…. As a whole the volume sets fixed, negative social patterns against the threat imaged by the lion's roar, 'the rut of freedom bending the bars of the cage'.

The stories' ironic tension between tragic circumstances and inadequate protagonists is paralleled by their marriage of detachment and intensity…. Many of these stories portray a 'monstrous detachment' where grief and passion might be called for….

There are some ornately written atmospheric pieces ('A Lion on the Freeway', 'For Dear Life'), which are as fluent and expressive as the earlier work, and there are some bitingly clear passages of satire…. But much of the language is...