[Gary] has a visionary sweep that allows him to show how romantic idealism plays a role in modern life. Gary projects man into a new age that lies beyond modern tragedy; at the same time, The Roots of Heaven evokes the hell of the Hitlerian domination of Europe and contains one of the deepest contemporary views of the sufferings of man in modern times…. Gary's ontology is based on the idealism of both romanticism and neoromanticism, and it is bolstered by a strong sense of the freedom of the will. The idea, so strong in The Roots of Heaven, of man's being able to achieve his freedom by exercising free choice can be attributed in part to the existentialism of Sartre and Camus. Yet Gary has also found this idea in the mainstream of modern fiction, which includes writers like Conrad and Hemingway, whom he often resembles. Also...