2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing book here, April 9 2003
This review is from: Under Fire (Hardcover)
Amazing, sweeping, a black and white word picture of the nightmare of trench warfare. I read this book in the Univ. of Arizona library in stages from 1997-99 not for a class, not for a term paper, but merely BECAUSE IT WAS THERE. Barbusse is a poet when the shells are falling at 3:00 am, he is a priest when an appeal to Mon Dieu is needed to save a friend horribly wounded. How someone could compose something this flowing, with this kind of rhythm, even as the Hun is rushing another muddy trench, is amazing to me. He must have attained some altered state, some semi-divine detachment, when composing the lyrics that actually describe a nightmare you can't wake up from; or what most other people called World War I. Yet so many will have nothing to do with this type of literature, it's about war and therefore turns off automatically the majority of readers, and essentially all of the female type. But that is their loss - the book ends with a gasp at hope no matter how dark the sky; there is a ray of sun peeking through even the Germanic cloud of Destruction. This can be an example for all of our hopes whether one is surrounded by an actual battle or a conflict of one's own making.
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