 Reaction to The Portage to San <unk> of <unk> was mixed . Anthony <unk> in The Observer called it " astonishing " , Christopher Booker of The Daily Telegraph described it as a " powerful piece " , and English author A. S. <unk> said it was a " masterpiece " . In Explaining Hitler , Ron <unk> called The Portage " A <unk> story " , referring to Steiner 's <unk> Hitler has having taken on a life of its own . Writing in Time magazine , Otto Friedrich described the book " a <unk> fantasy of remarkable intensity " , adding that by not <unk> Hitler 's speech , Steiner <unk> from the <unk> of traditional Holocaust literature and ends the book " on a note of bleak ambiguity " . 
