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Fear
1915: Jean Dartemont heads off to the Great War, an eager conscript. The only thing he fears is missing the action. Soon, however, the vaunted “war to end all wars” seems like a war that will never end: whether mired in the trenches or going over the top, Jean finds himself caught in the midst of an unimaginable, unceasing slaughter. After he is wounded, he returns from the front to discover a world where no one knows or wants to know any of this. Both the public and the authorities go on talking about heroes — and sending more men to their graves. But Jean refuses to keep silent. He will speak the forbidden word. He will tell them about fear.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
147 people are currently reading
3980 people want to read
About the author
Gabriel Chevallier
91 books26 followersGabriel Chevallier (3 May 1895 – 6 April 1969) was a French novelist widely known as the author of the satire Clochemerle.
Born in Lyon in 1895, Gabriel Chevallier was educated in various schools before entering Lyon École des Beaux-Arts in 1911. He was called up at the start of World War I and wounded a year later, but returned to the front where he served as an infantryman until the war's end. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. Following the war he undertook several jobs including art teacher, journalist and commercial traveller before starting to write in 1925. His novel La Peur (Fear) published in 1930 drew upon his own experiences and formed a damning indictment of the war. He was married with one son and died in Cannes in 1969.
Clochemerle was written in 1934 and has been translated into twenty-six languages and sold several million copies. It was dramatised first in a 1947 film by Pierre Chenal and in 1972 by the BBC. He wrote two sequels: Clochemerle Babylon (Clochemerle-Babylone, 1951), and Clochemerle-les-Bains (1963). In the USA the Clochemerle books were published under the English titles The Scandals of Clochemerle (for Clochemerle in 1937) and The Wicked Village (Clochemerle-Babylone, 1956).
Others translated into English include Sainte Colline (1937), Cherry (Ma Petite Amie Pomme, 1940), The Affairs of Flavie or The Euffe Inheritance (Les Héritiers Euffe, 1945) and Mascarade (1948).
Other books in French include Clarisse Vernon, Propre à Rien, Chemins de Solitude and Le Petit Général.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_...
Born in Lyon in 1895, Gabriel Chevallier was educated in various schools before entering Lyon École des Beaux-Arts in 1911. He was called up at the start of World War I and wounded a year later, but returned to the front where he served as an infantryman until the war's end. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. Following the war he undertook several jobs including art teacher, journalist and commercial traveller before starting to write in 1925. His novel La Peur (Fear) published in 1930 drew upon his own experiences and formed a damning indictment of the war. He was married with one son and died in Cannes in 1969.
Clochemerle was written in 1934 and has been translated into twenty-six languages and sold several million copies. It was dramatised first in a 1947 film by Pierre Chenal and in 1972 by the BBC. He wrote two sequels: Clochemerle Babylon (Clochemerle-Babylone, 1951), and Clochemerle-les-Bains (1963). In the USA the Clochemerle books were published under the English titles The Scandals of Clochemerle (for Clochemerle in 1937) and The Wicked Village (Clochemerle-Babylone, 1956).
Others translated into English include Sainte Colline (1937), Cherry (Ma Petite Amie Pomme, 1940), The Affairs of Flavie or The Euffe Inheritance (Les Héritiers Euffe, 1945) and Mascarade (1948).
Other books in French include Clarisse Vernon, Propre à Rien, Chemins de Solitude and Le Petit Général.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_...
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August 26, 2022
Here everything is planned for killing. The ground is ready to receive us, the bullets are ready to hit us, the spots where the shells will explode are fixed in time and space, just like the paths of our destiny which will inevitably lead us to them. And yet we want to stay alive and we use all our mental strength to silence the voice of reason. We are well aware that death does not immortalize a human being in the memories of the living, it simply cancels him out...
- Gabriel Chevallier, Fear
This is a ferocious cry of pain and rage.
Gabriel Chevallier’s Fear is a semi-autobiographical novel that follows first-person narrator (and Chevallier stand-in) Jean Dartemont through the First World War. First published in 1930, it was pulled out of circulation during the Second World War, and only made its way to an English translation – by Malcolm Imrie, which reads smoothly – in the last few years. Until it was recommended to me, I’d never even heard of it, though I am glad I did. Fear has all the qualities of a classic. It is brutally violent, bleakly funny, unflinchingly honest, and courses with unbridled anger. It is one of the more unique, strange, and unsettling war novels I’ve ever read.
***
Fear begins with an irresistible hook: a naïve and innocent Europe on the brink of cataclysm. “The fire was already smoldering somewhere down in the depths of Europe,” Dartemont says in the opening lines, “but carefree France donned its summer costumes, straw hats and flannel trousers, and packed its bags for the holidays.” Suddenly, a war is on, and the iced absinthe has to wait. The nineteen year-old Dartemont, formerly a student, is now a soldier. In a scene of sly humor, he is chosen for officer candidacy, but subsequently scores too high on the proficiency test (only the men with the lowest scores become officers).
Thus begins a hellish journey into the trenches, across No Man’s Land, into a hospital, on a brief sojourn to the home front, and back to the trenches again.
***
The theme of the novel is stated in the starkness of the title: this is all about cold, naked fear. One thinks of General William T. Sherman at the Ohio State Fair in 1880, telling his listeners that war “is all hell.” Chevallier tries to make this observation real. He paints terrifying images with his words, creating an inferno that puts you in the mind of a Bosch painting.
Chevallier meditates constantly on the terror felt by himself and the men around him. Those who are wounded but not permanently maimed feel as though they have won the lottery. The utter randomness of their potential destruction maddens them. One desperate man activates a grenade, puts his arm around a dugout wall, and blows off his hand rather than continue.
***
Chevallier also goes after the officers leading them to their destruction. He is persistent in his unrelentingly harsh critiques of the sheltered men who threw their lives away to gain an inch of mud they’d lose in an hour. He goes so far as to write that the ordinary French soldier had more in common with a German soldier than with his own leaders.
At times, Chevallier’s Dartemont becomes a bit too didactic, especially with some of the speeches he gives while in the hospital. Dartemont’s dialectics feel glaringly novelistic, in a book that is otherwise committed to gritty detail. On the whole, though, this fierce attack on the military leadership is rather bracing. We are in a period – more than a hundred years later – of World War I revisionism. In my reading, I’ve seen historians attempting to reframe and re-contextualize the generals who oversaw this great slaughter, rehabilitating the reputations of men like Douglas Haig. Chevallier’s perspective, and the perspective of others like him, provide an effective counterbalance. Yes, hindsight is clarifying; at the same time, it shouldn’t wipe away the actual experiences of the people who lived it.
***
Many war novels (and, for that matter, war movies) claim to be antiwar. Even so, it’s really difficult to make this stance effectively. War brings out a lot of virtues in men and women: courage, loyalty, sacrifice. More to the point, the battlefield – to the reader or viewer, safe at home – can seem a kinetic and exciting place. An amphitheater of high-stakes action, pitting foes one against the other for the prize of victory, the prize of nations, the prize of life.
Chevallier avoids this in a fascinating manner. His combat scenes – with one brief exception – never take Dartemont face to face with the enemy. The battles in Fear are absolutely impersonal, dominated by the shriek of artillery, by shrapnel slicing through the air. What Chevallier does is build tension without release. There is never an outlet. There is no cathartic moment – as in The Red Badge of Courage – when our protagonist finds his nerve, lifts his rifle, and delivers an Alvin C. York impression. Instead, we are given the enduring portrait of a man suffering from diarrhea during a bombardment. We agonize with him as he decides whether to run for the latrines, or let his bowels explode in his pants.
Mostly, when it comes to battles, Chevallier focuses on the grim aftermath. Dartemont is forever cataloguing the corpses that he stumbles across.
This is the stuff of nightmares.
***
The First World War lacks any sense of moral clarity. It began for complicated reasons involving continental positioning and strategic alliances, and soon cost far more than those nebulous geopolitical concepts could possibly be worth. Millions of men in huge conscript armies were wrenched from their everyday lives, forced to risk all because some unloved Austrian archduke got killed in Sarajevo. By the time it ended, the meaning of the war seemed to mean less than simply winning it. Because of this, the First World War has been fertile ground for profound fiction on the ultimate futility of massed combat as an instrument of policy.
In Fear, Chevallier displays his wrath towards those who unleashed these forces, and rightly so. The politicians always talk about the necessity of war. The generals about the glory of it. The civilians far from the front will sanctimoniously declare their own resolve. The soldiers, though – as Chevallier poignantly demonstrates – just want their one chance at life on earth.
- Gabriel Chevallier, Fear
This is a ferocious cry of pain and rage.
Gabriel Chevallier’s Fear is a semi-autobiographical novel that follows first-person narrator (and Chevallier stand-in) Jean Dartemont through the First World War. First published in 1930, it was pulled out of circulation during the Second World War, and only made its way to an English translation – by Malcolm Imrie, which reads smoothly – in the last few years. Until it was recommended to me, I’d never even heard of it, though I am glad I did. Fear has all the qualities of a classic. It is brutally violent, bleakly funny, unflinchingly honest, and courses with unbridled anger. It is one of the more unique, strange, and unsettling war novels I’ve ever read.
***
Fear begins with an irresistible hook: a naïve and innocent Europe on the brink of cataclysm. “The fire was already smoldering somewhere down in the depths of Europe,” Dartemont says in the opening lines, “but carefree France donned its summer costumes, straw hats and flannel trousers, and packed its bags for the holidays.” Suddenly, a war is on, and the iced absinthe has to wait. The nineteen year-old Dartemont, formerly a student, is now a soldier. In a scene of sly humor, he is chosen for officer candidacy, but subsequently scores too high on the proficiency test (only the men with the lowest scores become officers).
Thus begins a hellish journey into the trenches, across No Man’s Land, into a hospital, on a brief sojourn to the home front, and back to the trenches again.
***
The theme of the novel is stated in the starkness of the title: this is all about cold, naked fear. One thinks of General William T. Sherman at the Ohio State Fair in 1880, telling his listeners that war “is all hell.” Chevallier tries to make this observation real. He paints terrifying images with his words, creating an inferno that puts you in the mind of a Bosch painting.
We were shaken out of this torpor by a world in flames. We had just marched over the crest of a hill, and suddenly there before us lay the front line, roaring with all its mouths of fire, blazing like some infernal factory where monstrous crucibles melted human flesh into bloody lava. We shuddered at the thought that we were nothing but more coal to be shoveled into this furnace, that there were soldiers down there fighting against the storm of steel, the red hurricane that burned the sky and shook the earth to its foundations. There were so many explosions that they merged into a constant roar and glare. It was as if someone had set a match to the petrol-soaked horizon, or an evil spirit was stoking up the flames in some devil’s punch-bowl, dancing naked and sneering at our destruction.
Chevallier meditates constantly on the terror felt by himself and the men around him. Those who are wounded but not permanently maimed feel as though they have won the lottery. The utter randomness of their potential destruction maddens them. One desperate man activates a grenade, puts his arm around a dugout wall, and blows off his hand rather than continue.
***
Chevallier also goes after the officers leading them to their destruction. He is persistent in his unrelentingly harsh critiques of the sheltered men who threw their lives away to gain an inch of mud they’d lose in an hour. He goes so far as to write that the ordinary French soldier had more in common with a German soldier than with his own leaders.
At times, Chevallier’s Dartemont becomes a bit too didactic, especially with some of the speeches he gives while in the hospital. Dartemont’s dialectics feel glaringly novelistic, in a book that is otherwise committed to gritty detail. On the whole, though, this fierce attack on the military leadership is rather bracing. We are in a period – more than a hundred years later – of World War I revisionism. In my reading, I’ve seen historians attempting to reframe and re-contextualize the generals who oversaw this great slaughter, rehabilitating the reputations of men like Douglas Haig. Chevallier’s perspective, and the perspective of others like him, provide an effective counterbalance. Yes, hindsight is clarifying; at the same time, it shouldn’t wipe away the actual experiences of the people who lived it.
***
Many war novels (and, for that matter, war movies) claim to be antiwar. Even so, it’s really difficult to make this stance effectively. War brings out a lot of virtues in men and women: courage, loyalty, sacrifice. More to the point, the battlefield – to the reader or viewer, safe at home – can seem a kinetic and exciting place. An amphitheater of high-stakes action, pitting foes one against the other for the prize of victory, the prize of nations, the prize of life.
Chevallier avoids this in a fascinating manner. His combat scenes – with one brief exception – never take Dartemont face to face with the enemy. The battles in Fear are absolutely impersonal, dominated by the shriek of artillery, by shrapnel slicing through the air. What Chevallier does is build tension without release. There is never an outlet. There is no cathartic moment – as in The Red Badge of Courage – when our protagonist finds his nerve, lifts his rifle, and delivers an Alvin C. York impression. Instead, we are given the enduring portrait of a man suffering from diarrhea during a bombardment. We agonize with him as he decides whether to run for the latrines, or let his bowels explode in his pants.
Mostly, when it comes to battles, Chevallier focuses on the grim aftermath. Dartemont is forever cataloguing the corpses that he stumbles across.
From a distance I saw the profile of a bald little man with a beard, sitting on the fire-step, who seemed to be laughing. It was the first relaxed, cheerful face we had seen, and I approached him thankfully, asking myself what he had to laugh about. He was laughing at being dead! His head was cleanly sliced down the middle. As I passed, I saw with a start that he had lost half this jovial head, the other profile. The head was completely empty. His brains, which had dropped out in one piece, were placed neatly beside him…
This is the stuff of nightmares.
***
The First World War lacks any sense of moral clarity. It began for complicated reasons involving continental positioning and strategic alliances, and soon cost far more than those nebulous geopolitical concepts could possibly be worth. Millions of men in huge conscript armies were wrenched from their everyday lives, forced to risk all because some unloved Austrian archduke got killed in Sarajevo. By the time it ended, the meaning of the war seemed to mean less than simply winning it. Because of this, the First World War has been fertile ground for profound fiction on the ultimate futility of massed combat as an instrument of policy.
In Fear, Chevallier displays his wrath towards those who unleashed these forces, and rightly so. The politicians always talk about the necessity of war. The generals about the glory of it. The civilians far from the front will sanctimoniously declare their own resolve. The soldiers, though – as Chevallier poignantly demonstrates – just want their one chance at life on earth.
August 17, 2014
Fear:A Novel of World War I, The one novel you must read about the Great War
Gabriel Chevalier in service during World War I
Much more to come. Not to heighten suspense, this novel is superb. Chevallier holds nothing back in his depiction of war. It is a scathing portrait of indifferent leaders mindful of their reputation but not the fate of their men. Discipline is brutal. Armed Gendarmes on horseback are stationed behind the lines to send men moving to the rear back to the front. Gendarmes who do not fight have the authority to execute soldiers who do not obey. Medals are distributed, but to the commanders safely ensconced in fortified dugouts far in the rear of combat. Those at the front whose actions lead to success are not recognized. Newspapers cover up failures at the front. Civilians accustomed to seeing soldiers home on leave are unaware of the massive deaths at the front unless they have received personal notification of their own loss. This is a bold tale of bitterness and black humor. It is not to be missed. This may be THE WWI novel you've not heard of. It's tone is completely different from All Quiet on the Western Front and Grave's Goodbye to all That. Chevallier spares the reader nothing. Because of that this novel carries with it more power than anything else this reader has encountered written as a result of the Great War.
Gabriel Chevalier in service during World War I
Much more to come. Not to heighten suspense, this novel is superb. Chevallier holds nothing back in his depiction of war. It is a scathing portrait of indifferent leaders mindful of their reputation but not the fate of their men. Discipline is brutal. Armed Gendarmes on horseback are stationed behind the lines to send men moving to the rear back to the front. Gendarmes who do not fight have the authority to execute soldiers who do not obey. Medals are distributed, but to the commanders safely ensconced in fortified dugouts far in the rear of combat. Those at the front whose actions lead to success are not recognized. Newspapers cover up failures at the front. Civilians accustomed to seeing soldiers home on leave are unaware of the massive deaths at the front unless they have received personal notification of their own loss. This is a bold tale of bitterness and black humor. It is not to be missed. This may be THE WWI novel you've not heard of. It's tone is completely different from All Quiet on the Western Front and Grave's Goodbye to all That. Chevallier spares the reader nothing. Because of that this novel carries with it more power than anything else this reader has encountered written as a result of the Great War.
September 4, 2014
If you are interested in World War I on this the centenary of that terrible event and, especially, if you are interested in life and action on the front during that war, then I suggest you get a copy of this book. While this is a novel, it reads like fact and was written by a Frenchman who lived through these battles on the front. Perhaps fictionalized memoir is an apt description for this book.
We begin with Jean Dartemont's rather lackadaisical approach to joining the French war effort and then his experiences as a recruit and at the front. Several times, as Jean's experiences progressed and he lived through some of the most harrowing moments of the war, I took a temporary break from reading after a particularly heartbreaking episode but then jumped back in. This is so well written, so full of details of daily life, the life of everyday French soldiers living in and digging trenches; waiting, constantly waiting, so often in the rain.
The war begins.
Priority! The telegraph is working flat out, for
for reasons of state. Post offices send out telegrams in
cipher, marked "Urgent".
The proclamation is posted up on every town hall in the
country.
The shouting starts: "It's official!"
Crowds of people swarm on to the streets, pushing and
shoving, running, running in all direction.
Cafes empty. Shops empty. Cinemas, museums, banks,
churches, bachelor flats and police stations empty.
The whole of France now stands gazing at the poster
and reads: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - General
Mobilization."
The whole of France stands on tiptoe to see the poster,
all squeezed together in a fraternal huddle, dripping
with sweat beneath a burning sun, and repeats the word
"mobilization" without understanding it.
A voice goes off in the crowd like a firecracker:
IT'S WAR!
And then France goes into a spin, rushing along the
streets and boulevards that are too narrow for such crowds,
through the villages, and out across the countryside: war,
war, war,...
Hey! Over there! War! (loc 162)
When you read this you will have the beginning of a feeling for Jean and his attitude toward the war. Both he and the author are skeptics. Both will do their duty no matter the cost.
Men are stupid and ignorant. That is why they suffer.
Instead of thinking, they believe all that they are told,
all that they are taught. They choose their lords and
masters without judging them, with a fatal taste for
slavery.
Men are sheep. This fact makes armies and wars possible.
They die the victims of their own stupid docility....
They told the Germans: " Forward to a bright and
joyous war! On to Paris! God is with us, for a greater
Germany!"....
They told the French: " The nation is under attack.
We will fight for Justice and Retribution. On to Berlin!
....
So it was with the Austrians, the Belgians, the English,
the Russian, the Turks, and then the Italians. In a single
week, twenty million men, busy with their lives and loves
....received the order to stop everything to go and kill
other men....Twenty million, all in good faith, following
god and their prince...twenty million idiots...like me!
(loc 213)
I encourage you to read this book, read how this young 19 year old with no stomach for war went to war and fought with friends and countrymen through a terrible time.
An ecopy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
We begin with Jean Dartemont's rather lackadaisical approach to joining the French war effort and then his experiences as a recruit and at the front. Several times, as Jean's experiences progressed and he lived through some of the most harrowing moments of the war, I took a temporary break from reading after a particularly heartbreaking episode but then jumped back in. This is so well written, so full of details of daily life, the life of everyday French soldiers living in and digging trenches; waiting, constantly waiting, so often in the rain.
The war begins.
Priority! The telegraph is working flat out, for
for reasons of state. Post offices send out telegrams in
cipher, marked "Urgent".
The proclamation is posted up on every town hall in the
country.
The shouting starts: "It's official!"
Crowds of people swarm on to the streets, pushing and
shoving, running, running in all direction.
Cafes empty. Shops empty. Cinemas, museums, banks,
churches, bachelor flats and police stations empty.
The whole of France now stands gazing at the poster
and reads: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - General
Mobilization."
The whole of France stands on tiptoe to see the poster,
all squeezed together in a fraternal huddle, dripping
with sweat beneath a burning sun, and repeats the word
"mobilization" without understanding it.
A voice goes off in the crowd like a firecracker:
IT'S WAR!
And then France goes into a spin, rushing along the
streets and boulevards that are too narrow for such crowds,
through the villages, and out across the countryside: war,
war, war,...
Hey! Over there! War! (loc 162)
When you read this you will have the beginning of a feeling for Jean and his attitude toward the war. Both he and the author are skeptics. Both will do their duty no matter the cost.
Men are stupid and ignorant. That is why they suffer.
Instead of thinking, they believe all that they are told,
all that they are taught. They choose their lords and
masters without judging them, with a fatal taste for
slavery.
Men are sheep. This fact makes armies and wars possible.
They die the victims of their own stupid docility....
They told the Germans: " Forward to a bright and
joyous war! On to Paris! God is with us, for a greater
Germany!"....
They told the French: " The nation is under attack.
We will fight for Justice and Retribution. On to Berlin!
....
So it was with the Austrians, the Belgians, the English,
the Russian, the Turks, and then the Italians. In a single
week, twenty million men, busy with their lives and loves
....received the order to stop everything to go and kill
other men....Twenty million, all in good faith, following
god and their prince...twenty million idiots...like me!
(loc 213)
I encourage you to read this book, read how this young 19 year old with no stomach for war went to war and fought with friends and countrymen through a terrible time.
An ecopy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
November 3, 2022
I've read a few anti-war novels and a few war memoirs as well. This is the first to actually bring up the emotion of Fear in regards to being on the battlefield. The soldier mentioning he/she was afraid is/was taboo. In society's eyes, if you're fearful or afraid of going into battle, then you're a coward and won't amount to much. You come home with a war-wound, you should go back and put it behind you! You're not patriotic enough if you're not willing to die for your country!
This book reveals the reality of being on the front line in France in World War I and the actual emotions involved concerning the soldier and the perception of the country who conscripted you. The advent of new technologies were in heavy use: the aeroplane, flame-throwers, chemical warfare, trench warfare, etc - some of the nastiest and horrible ways to die were abound.
As this is an autobiographical novel, it really shows how Chevallier's mindset was as a young conscript and how he truly felt about war and its participants.
Interesting note: At the start of World War II, this book was taken off the shelves by the publisher because of its message.
A couple of my favorite passages from the book:
"If I must die now, I will not say it is awful or terrible, but it is unjust and absurd, because I have not yet attempted anything, I have done nothing but wait for my chance and my moment, built up my resources and waited. The life of my will and my tastes is only just starting - or will start, because the war has deferred it. If I disappear now, I will have been nothing but subordinate and anonymous. I will have been defeated."
"Here everything is planned for killing. The ground is ready to receive us, the bullets are ready to hit us, the spots where the shells will explode are fixed in time and space, just like the paths of our destiny which will inevitably lead us to them. And yet we want to stay alive and we use all our mental strength to silence the voice of reason. We are well aware that the death does not immortalize a human being in the memories of the living, it simply cancels him out."
As someone that's not been in the military or been on a battlefield, I can never imagine what goes through the mind at any given time out there. Always being afraid and anxious, but not being able to express that emotion.
I will end this by sharing a fairly long quote/joke from George Carlin (from 1990). He was a polarizing comedian, but I think this is spot on:
George Carlin
"There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can’t take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shellshock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables: shellshock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along, and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shellshock! Battle fatigue.…Korea, 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, we’re up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. …the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ll bet you if we’d have still been calling it shellshock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha that. I’ll betcha that."
This book reveals the reality of being on the front line in France in World War I and the actual emotions involved concerning the soldier and the perception of the country who conscripted you. The advent of new technologies were in heavy use: the aeroplane, flame-throwers, chemical warfare, trench warfare, etc - some of the nastiest and horrible ways to die were abound.
As this is an autobiographical novel, it really shows how Chevallier's mindset was as a young conscript and how he truly felt about war and its participants.
Interesting note: At the start of World War II, this book was taken off the shelves by the publisher because of its message.
A couple of my favorite passages from the book:
"If I must die now, I will not say it is awful or terrible, but it is unjust and absurd, because I have not yet attempted anything, I have done nothing but wait for my chance and my moment, built up my resources and waited. The life of my will and my tastes is only just starting - or will start, because the war has deferred it. If I disappear now, I will have been nothing but subordinate and anonymous. I will have been defeated."
"Here everything is planned for killing. The ground is ready to receive us, the bullets are ready to hit us, the spots where the shells will explode are fixed in time and space, just like the paths of our destiny which will inevitably lead us to them. And yet we want to stay alive and we use all our mental strength to silence the voice of reason. We are well aware that the death does not immortalize a human being in the memories of the living, it simply cancels him out."
As someone that's not been in the military or been on a battlefield, I can never imagine what goes through the mind at any given time out there. Always being afraid and anxious, but not being able to express that emotion.
I will end this by sharing a fairly long quote/joke from George Carlin (from 1990). He was a polarizing comedian, but I think this is spot on:
George Carlin
"There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can’t take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shellshock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables: shellshock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along, and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shellshock! Battle fatigue.…Korea, 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, we’re up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. …the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ll bet you if we’d have still been calling it shellshock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I’ll betcha that. I’ll betcha that."
October 27, 2015
I wanted to read about World War I without going into the trenches, but, necessarily, into the trenches we must go. Absurdity is there, along with the putrefaction. It doesn't take long for our semi-autobiographical, first-person narrator to understand that he is mere fodder, that there is no point. Yet, he is there for the duration, collecting stories and sharing the Fear. He is even capable of moments of courage.
My views of War and of military ritual were formed long ago. What was new for me, here, was the graphic realization that you can not know unless you are there, feet in frozen water, ready to pointlessly climb the parapet. Convalescing from shrapnel wounds, Dartemont has this exchange with a friend of the family to whom he has spoken of Fear:
'Still, you don't believe what you said, do you?'
'I really do believe it, as do many others.'
'But there is still such a thing as duty, they must have taught you that.'
'I've been taught a great many things - like you - and I'm aware that one has to choose between them. War is nothing but a monstrous absurdity and nothing good or great will come from it.'
'Dartemont, think of your country!'
'My country? Another concept to which you attach from a distance a rather vague ideal.' ...
'But...what about liberty?'
'I carry my liberty with me. It is in my thoughts, in my head. Shakespeare is one of my countries, Goethe another. You can change the badge that I wear, but you can't change the way I think.'
Back to the trenches, where Dartemont hears this:
'There'll never be an end to this shit!' he grumbled.
'Yes there will, old pal, it can't go on forever.'
'Oh jesus! ... If they stuck old Joffre here in my hole, and old Hindenburg opposite, with the lads on both sides cheering the bastards on, they'd soon sort out their bloody war!'
_____ _____ _____ _____
Chevallier, of course, was there. Nothing sounds made up. In fact, it didn't read like a novel at all to me. Like Dartemont, Chevalier was a conscript, wounded in the first year, and returned to fight till the ceasefire. He published 'Fear' in 1930 and it sold very well. Until 1939, when it was suppressed, with the acquiescence of the author. As he said, "Once war has come, the time has passed for warning that it is a disastrous venture with unforeseeable consequences. That is something that must be understood earlier, and acted on accordingly."
My views of War and of military ritual were formed long ago. What was new for me, here, was the graphic realization that you can not know unless you are there, feet in frozen water, ready to pointlessly climb the parapet. Convalescing from shrapnel wounds, Dartemont has this exchange with a friend of the family to whom he has spoken of Fear:
'Still, you don't believe what you said, do you?'
'I really do believe it, as do many others.'
'But there is still such a thing as duty, they must have taught you that.'
'I've been taught a great many things - like you - and I'm aware that one has to choose between them. War is nothing but a monstrous absurdity and nothing good or great will come from it.'
'Dartemont, think of your country!'
'My country? Another concept to which you attach from a distance a rather vague ideal.' ...
'But...what about liberty?'
'I carry my liberty with me. It is in my thoughts, in my head. Shakespeare is one of my countries, Goethe another. You can change the badge that I wear, but you can't change the way I think.'
Back to the trenches, where Dartemont hears this:
'There'll never be an end to this shit!' he grumbled.
'Yes there will, old pal, it can't go on forever.'
'Oh jesus! ... If they stuck old Joffre here in my hole, and old Hindenburg opposite, with the lads on both sides cheering the bastards on, they'd soon sort out their bloody war!'
_____ _____ _____ _____
Chevallier, of course, was there. Nothing sounds made up. In fact, it didn't read like a novel at all to me. Like Dartemont, Chevalier was a conscript, wounded in the first year, and returned to fight till the ceasefire. He published 'Fear' in 1930 and it sold very well. Until 1939, when it was suppressed, with the acquiescence of the author. As he said, "Once war has come, the time has passed for warning that it is a disastrous venture with unforeseeable consequences. That is something that must be understood earlier, and acted on accordingly."
October 13, 2024
Without a doubt, the most harrowing - the most graphic - war novel I've ever come across. Not that I've read many novels about war and can compare them to this one. I've not even read 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (which preceded by 2 years). But Chevallier's novel - which reads more like a documentary (it's not essentially character-based) - is certainly more visually shocking, more horrifying than even any war movie I've seen.
You can forget pulp horror stories when (here) you're witnessing the monstrous, unspeakable acts that man can inflict on his fellow man in wartime.
Seemingly, Chevallier did not miss an image. I was simply astonished by the sheer amount that he recalled and described. I can only imagine that the collective impact of what was brought before him was such that it seared his consciousness, staying embedded until he was able to commit each event faithfully to paper.
The author entered WWI at 19 years of age. Aside from a few reprieves (such as a hospital stay or a home visit), he stayed in uniform for the 4-year+ duration. It seems the greater part of his time was spent on battlefields, near front lines; most often serving as a 'runner' (a communicant between distanced soldiers and leaders).
Chevallier states that, at 19, his initial feeling about war was just that it piqued his curiosity. But it's not long before he begins documenting what contributes to the book's one-word title:
As the book progresses, you're likely to get the sense that - with this book - the author is on a fool's errand. His comrades-in-arms aside, no one in his peripheral orbit - not family members, not the people in his town, not the nurses who look after him in hospital, certainly none of his commanding officers - shares (or will at least give voice to) a pacifist outlook:
You can forget pulp horror stories when (here) you're witnessing the monstrous, unspeakable acts that man can inflict on his fellow man in wartime.
Seemingly, Chevallier did not miss an image. I was simply astonished by the sheer amount that he recalled and described. I can only imagine that the collective impact of what was brought before him was such that it seared his consciousness, staying embedded until he was able to commit each event faithfully to paper.
The author entered WWI at 19 years of age. Aside from a few reprieves (such as a hospital stay or a home visit), he stayed in uniform for the 4-year+ duration. It seems the greater part of his time was spent on battlefields, near front lines; most often serving as a 'runner' (a communicant between distanced soldiers and leaders).
Chevallier states that, at 19, his initial feeling about war was just that it piqued his curiosity. But it's not long before he begins documenting what contributes to the book's one-word title:
We were shaken out of this torpor by a world in flames. We had just marched over the crest of a hill, and suddenly there before us lay the front line, roaring with all its mouths of fire, blazing like some infernal factory where monstrous crucibles melted human flesh into a bloody lava. We shuddered at the thought that we were nothing but more coal to be shovelled into this furnace, that there were soldiers down there fighting against the storm of steel, the red hurricane that burned the sky and shook the earth to its foundations. There were so many explosions that they merged into a constant roar and glare. It was as if someone had set a match to the petrol-soaked horizon, or an evil spirit was stoking up the flames in some devil's punch-bowl, dancing naked and sneering at our destruction. ... This was... my first sight of hell unleashed.And Chevallier is just getting started. Wait until he paints individual portraits of corpses, ravaged to varying degrees. ~ to say nothing of the trails of body parts.
As the book progresses, you're likely to get the sense that - with this book - the author is on a fool's errand. His comrades-in-arms aside, no one in his peripheral orbit - not family members, not the people in his town, not the nurses who look after him in hospital, certainly none of his commanding officers - shares (or will at least give voice to) a pacifist outlook:
It is true to say that I'm a malcontent hero. If I am asked about the events of the war, I have the bad and unsociable habit of describing them as I found them. This liking for truth is incompatible with civilised behaviour. Those milieus where I was received and welcomed expected me to vindicate their smug passivity by my own optimism, expected me to display that scorn for the enemy, for hardship and danger, that good humour and spirit of enterprise that are legendary and so characteristic of French soldiers, the ones you see on the covers of almanacs, debonair and smiling in a hail of bullets. Civilians like to see the war as a fine adventure, and excellent distraction for young men, an adventure that of course has its dangers but compensates for them with the joys it offers: glory, romantic encounters, freedom from everyday cares.Later on, remarking on letter-writing to his sister, Chevallier mentions how he caves to predominant thinking:
There is no truth in what I write, no deep truth. I am describing the outer surface, the picturesque side of war, a war fought by enthusiasts that does not involve me. ... For those at the rear we write letters filled with suitable lies, lies 'to keep them happy'. We tell them about *their* war, the one that they will enjoy hearing about, and we keep ours secret.'Fear' was written / published almost 100 years ago. The average modern-day reader could easily be more on Chevallier's side than not. But being in his court brings no comfort. As it was then, so it is now - as a comrade tells Chevallier near the book's conclusion:
"Human stupidity is incurable. ... My boy, all the institutions lead to war. It's the crown of the whole social order, we've learnt that."'Fear' was unavailable in English until 2011 (!). Malcolm Imrie's fluid translation makes for a propulsive read. But then, Chevallier's text seems to have no fat on it. Unlike war itself, there's nothing in this unflinching report that's unnecessary.
June 12, 2017
Very good war memoir (well, I consider it lightly-veiled memoir). I've been trying to work my way through various WWI memoirs, there is a long list I'd like to get to, and I'd like to explore memoirs from various theaters and various cultures/nationalities (if you have any suggestions please let me know!). It's interesting getting the worm's eye view - almost literally when it comes to the nature of trench warfare! - of this episode of history.
This book contrasts nicely with Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel. I think both are excellent, Junger's book is a must read imo and of exceptional quality, but ultimately I align much more with Gabriel Chevallier: his disgust at the elites, their wanton carelessness in sending hundreds of thousands of men to be slaughtered in offensives they knew to be doomed from the start, the class-issues and elitism involved with this war (which he hits upon throughout the book), the pernicious nationalism yoked onto the citizenry by the state (also buttressed by bottom up mob mentality nationalism which he captures in an early scene in the book), and horror at the modernized industrialized warfare. Junger was much more of a true believer in the war and nationalism, although I wouldn't call him brainwashed - he struck me as an exceptionally smart man - so in many ways I respect him but I don't think I would have connected with him. Chevallier is probably much closer to Erich Maria Remarque (need to reread his WWI book). They were disillusioned and disgusted by war and those in power leveraging the power of the state to coerce people to submit themselves to such a brutal enterprise (many soldiers were executed by their own governments for not wanting or being unable to fight anymore, or desertion). Junger, on the other hand, struck me as more enthralled by the whole thing. A telling statement by Chevallier was that he considered the German infantrymen on the other side to be of the same family as him, brothers in arms, while he considered the French officers and generals on his side to be the greater threat and true criminals in this whole enterprise. It's an interesting thought, and captures the anger towards the elites that many soldiers felt, a sentiment that transcended nationalities across the various fighting forces. How broad was this sentiment I don't know, but it was certainly there amongst a subset of soldiers.
It's interesting to me how people can experience a relatively similar thing but process it in such different ways. What's nice in this book is that Chevallier captures the truth of his personal experience (as Junger captured his own personal truth of his experience), and both likely represent the truth of many other soldiers, marking different ends of a spectrum in how people experienced this thing, and I'm sure there was often a mix of feelings, and even certain paradoxical contrasting thoughts within the same individuals.
Chevallier is a good guide, he has strong intellectual foundations (far as I can tell!), as did Junger, but comes at things from different angles. Both men strike me as very rational, at least they uphold a high respect for practicing logic and rational thinking with rigor and so in this respect they are very similar. Although it is interesting that WWI seemed to crush quite a few peoples' faith in Western rationalism and logic, showing the pernicious permutations of instrumental rationalism used to manipulate the public and showcasing the dark alleys that blind worship of positivism can lead to. In general, it seemed to erode faith in various large scale institutions, including government and church, but also the domains of science and technology. As far as I can remember, for Chevallier the main erosion happened in his view of government and church, but not as much in science and technology. Junger seemed relatively unscathed in his views towards institutions of his time. Science and technology probably faced fewer challenges and rebounded more strongly because they were able to deliver tangible results in improving quality of life for many people (electricity, sanitation, transportation, water, food, material wealth, medicine and longer life, etc etc).
This book contrasts nicely with Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel. I think both are excellent, Junger's book is a must read imo and of exceptional quality, but ultimately I align much more with Gabriel Chevallier: his disgust at the elites, their wanton carelessness in sending hundreds of thousands of men to be slaughtered in offensives they knew to be doomed from the start, the class-issues and elitism involved with this war (which he hits upon throughout the book), the pernicious nationalism yoked onto the citizenry by the state (also buttressed by bottom up mob mentality nationalism which he captures in an early scene in the book), and horror at the modernized industrialized warfare. Junger was much more of a true believer in the war and nationalism, although I wouldn't call him brainwashed - he struck me as an exceptionally smart man - so in many ways I respect him but I don't think I would have connected with him. Chevallier is probably much closer to Erich Maria Remarque (need to reread his WWI book). They were disillusioned and disgusted by war and those in power leveraging the power of the state to coerce people to submit themselves to such a brutal enterprise (many soldiers were executed by their own governments for not wanting or being unable to fight anymore, or desertion). Junger, on the other hand, struck me as more enthralled by the whole thing. A telling statement by Chevallier was that he considered the German infantrymen on the other side to be of the same family as him, brothers in arms, while he considered the French officers and generals on his side to be the greater threat and true criminals in this whole enterprise. It's an interesting thought, and captures the anger towards the elites that many soldiers felt, a sentiment that transcended nationalities across the various fighting forces. How broad was this sentiment I don't know, but it was certainly there amongst a subset of soldiers.
It's interesting to me how people can experience a relatively similar thing but process it in such different ways. What's nice in this book is that Chevallier captures the truth of his personal experience (as Junger captured his own personal truth of his experience), and both likely represent the truth of many other soldiers, marking different ends of a spectrum in how people experienced this thing, and I'm sure there was often a mix of feelings, and even certain paradoxical contrasting thoughts within the same individuals.
Chevallier is a good guide, he has strong intellectual foundations (far as I can tell!), as did Junger, but comes at things from different angles. Both men strike me as very rational, at least they uphold a high respect for practicing logic and rational thinking with rigor and so in this respect they are very similar. Although it is interesting that WWI seemed to crush quite a few peoples' faith in Western rationalism and logic, showing the pernicious permutations of instrumental rationalism used to manipulate the public and showcasing the dark alleys that blind worship of positivism can lead to. In general, it seemed to erode faith in various large scale institutions, including government and church, but also the domains of science and technology. As far as I can remember, for Chevallier the main erosion happened in his view of government and church, but not as much in science and technology. Junger seemed relatively unscathed in his views towards institutions of his time. Science and technology probably faced fewer challenges and rebounded more strongly because they were able to deliver tangible results in improving quality of life for many people (electricity, sanitation, transportation, water, food, material wealth, medicine and longer life, etc etc).
August 27, 2017
«… se per avere un eroe bisogna massacrare diecimila uomini, preferisco fare a meno degli eroi. Sappiate infatti che la missione a cui ci destinate, forse, voi non sareste in grado di compierla. Nessuno può giurare sulla propria saldezza di fronte alla morte finché non se la trova davanti».
Il ventenne Dartemont, alter ego di Chevallier inizia ponendosi un interrogativo: cos’è la guerra? tutti ne parlano, tutti ci vanno, ma cos’è, in realtà, la guerra?
Penso alle parole di Bourne: “La guerra è la salute dello stato”. Si crede di morire per la Patria e si muore invece per il Potere.
Stupidità, povertà e ignoranza generano uomini che credono e obbediscono all’ordine di capi e padroni. E ciò rende possibile gli eserciti e le guerre.
Si traveste da ideale un atto criminale e si condannano a morte esseri umani colpevoli della propria docilità.
Chi dà ordine al massacro sorride tracotante pensando alla vittoria. Milioni e milioni di vittime servono a soddisfare la vanità imbecille che manda il mondo in rovina.
Quelli che vanno “alla guerra” non sono pupazzi, sono uomini fatti di carne e di paura.
Paura, ecco la parola maledetta. Paura, parola impronunciabile. Perché se solo affiora alle labbra del soldato lo trasforma in ciò che realmente è: un povero cristo mandato al macello.
Ci va coraggio, e tanto, per raccontare la paura del soldato al fronte che rischia la vita per combattere una guerra insensata.
Non si racconta la paura, non si deve. Meglio narrare grandi e piccole imprese, eroiche, coraggiose, piene di ideologia e amor di patria, mentre un povero cristo subisce la guerra chiedendosi perché.
Chevallier affida a Dartemont il compito di raccontare l’orrore e la paura. Perché non si può non provare paura quando si leva un ruggito dalle creste montane e si vede trasformare in lava di sangue la carne degli uomini.
Non è possibile non provare orrore e paura quando si cammina fra e su cadaveri che esalano miasmi nauseabondi, quando si calpesta ciò che rimane di un altro essere umano. Un braccio, una gamba, una testa senza corpo. Come si fa a non provare paura?
Per quanto paradossale, ho trovato nella durezza disperante di certe pagine la più alta espressione di umanità.
“Vivo come un animale, un animale che ha fame, che ha sonno. Non mi è mai capitato di sentirmi così istupidito, così vuoto di pensieri. Ora capisco che lo sfinimento fisico, togliendo alle persone il tempo di riflettere e riducendole a provare solo bisogni elementari, è un sicuro mezzo di dominio. Capisco che se gli schiavi si assoggettano tanto facilmente è perché non hanno più le forze per tentare una rivolta, né l’immaginazione per concepirla, né l’energia per organizzarla. Capisco l’astuzia degli oppressori, che privano gli sfruttati dell’uso del cervello piegandoli sotto il peso di fatiche spossanti. Certe volte mi sento sul punto di cadere in balìa di quella specie di sortilegio causato dalla stanchezza e dalla monotonia, in quello stato di passività animale che accetta qualsiasi cosa, in quello stato di sottomissione che equivale all’annientamento dell’individuo. La mia facoltà di giudizio si ottunde, tollera tutto e capitola”.
La paura pubblicato nel 1930 e ritirato nel ’39. Scomodo e pericoloso lasciarlo circolare liberamente mentre nuova “carne da macello” si apprestava a cadere. Se fosse stato letto, forse ci sarebbero stati tanti renitenti in più. E tanti tantissimi morti in meno da piangere.
Un libro che non dovrebbe mancare nelle biblioteche, fra i libri di testo, nelle librerie, nelle case. Leggetelo. Regalatelo. Diffondetelo.
Il ventenne Dartemont, alter ego di Chevallier inizia ponendosi un interrogativo: cos’è la guerra? tutti ne parlano, tutti ci vanno, ma cos’è, in realtà, la guerra?
Penso alle parole di Bourne: “La guerra è la salute dello stato”. Si crede di morire per la Patria e si muore invece per il Potere.
Stupidità, povertà e ignoranza generano uomini che credono e obbediscono all’ordine di capi e padroni. E ciò rende possibile gli eserciti e le guerre.
Si traveste da ideale un atto criminale e si condannano a morte esseri umani colpevoli della propria docilità.
Chi dà ordine al massacro sorride tracotante pensando alla vittoria. Milioni e milioni di vittime servono a soddisfare la vanità imbecille che manda il mondo in rovina.
Quelli che vanno “alla guerra” non sono pupazzi, sono uomini fatti di carne e di paura.
Paura, ecco la parola maledetta. Paura, parola impronunciabile. Perché se solo affiora alle labbra del soldato lo trasforma in ciò che realmente è: un povero cristo mandato al macello.
Ci va coraggio, e tanto, per raccontare la paura del soldato al fronte che rischia la vita per combattere una guerra insensata.
Non si racconta la paura, non si deve. Meglio narrare grandi e piccole imprese, eroiche, coraggiose, piene di ideologia e amor di patria, mentre un povero cristo subisce la guerra chiedendosi perché.
Chevallier affida a Dartemont il compito di raccontare l’orrore e la paura. Perché non si può non provare paura quando si leva un ruggito dalle creste montane e si vede trasformare in lava di sangue la carne degli uomini.
Non è possibile non provare orrore e paura quando si cammina fra e su cadaveri che esalano miasmi nauseabondi, quando si calpesta ciò che rimane di un altro essere umano. Un braccio, una gamba, una testa senza corpo. Come si fa a non provare paura?
Per quanto paradossale, ho trovato nella durezza disperante di certe pagine la più alta espressione di umanità.
“Vivo come un animale, un animale che ha fame, che ha sonno. Non mi è mai capitato di sentirmi così istupidito, così vuoto di pensieri. Ora capisco che lo sfinimento fisico, togliendo alle persone il tempo di riflettere e riducendole a provare solo bisogni elementari, è un sicuro mezzo di dominio. Capisco che se gli schiavi si assoggettano tanto facilmente è perché non hanno più le forze per tentare una rivolta, né l’immaginazione per concepirla, né l’energia per organizzarla. Capisco l’astuzia degli oppressori, che privano gli sfruttati dell’uso del cervello piegandoli sotto il peso di fatiche spossanti. Certe volte mi sento sul punto di cadere in balìa di quella specie di sortilegio causato dalla stanchezza e dalla monotonia, in quello stato di passività animale che accetta qualsiasi cosa, in quello stato di sottomissione che equivale all’annientamento dell’individuo. La mia facoltà di giudizio si ottunde, tollera tutto e capitola”.
La paura pubblicato nel 1930 e ritirato nel ’39. Scomodo e pericoloso lasciarlo circolare liberamente mentre nuova “carne da macello” si apprestava a cadere. Se fosse stato letto, forse ci sarebbero stati tanti renitenti in più. E tanti tantissimi morti in meno da piangere.
Un libro che non dovrebbe mancare nelle biblioteche, fra i libri di testo, nelle librerie, nelle case. Leggetelo. Regalatelo. Diffondetelo.
April 23, 2015
Written by a French veteran of the First World War, FEAR is one of the great anti-war novels. Not as melodramatic as JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN nor even ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (and I use "melodramatic" only in a comparative sense), nor as absurdly comic as CATCH-22, Gabriel Chevallier's novel is simply (at least on the surface) a seemingly objective description of the life of a French poilu, or foot-soldier, in the trenches of northern France from 1914 to 1918. Chevallier recoils not one bit from the horrors so numbingly omnipresent on the battlefields of that wretched war, but he writes with an apparent detachment that obliterates the sense of this as a polemic. Yet the book is even more effective for Chevallier's seeming disdain for pushing an agenda, and beneath the surface lies a hidden lake of bile, sarcasm, and outrage. FEAR is an obscure book compared to the classic anti-war novels mentioned above, and has only recently been rediscovered and reissued. It is perhaps the most poetic novel of its type ever written. Blood, anguish, and a sardonic dolefulness hang on every word. It is an extraordinary achievement.
July 6, 2014
Wow!! This one is an unrecognized classic of the military novel genre that should be better known! Jean Dartemont, the eager young Frenchman, joins the French army in 1915 against the Germans. He is quickly disillusioned as to blind patriotism and to army life: there is no glory to be found here except that for the high officers, who grab it at the expense of the ranks. All to be found here in the trenches is only mind-numbing monotony and overwhelmingly, the desire to stay alive. Mostly the men are in a state of stasis waiting for the other side to start something. Fear, Anxiety, and Terror are Dartemont's constant companions, just as they accompany every other 'poilu' [common soldier].
We are taken through his whole military career from enlistment to the Armistice. It details Dartemont's coming upon dead Germans for the first time and his shock at how the bodies have been blown apart. In his first battle, in which he kills no one he is wounded enough to send to the hospital. Nurses there care for gruesome, grisly wounds and are disappointed there are no tales of glorious exploits. None of the patients have any to tell them. On convalescent leave, his father can't or won't understand the war from the common soldiers' viewpoint. Neither do civilians in general. Return to the front takes him either to the fighting or behind the lines as 'runner' [delivering messages under fire] or making and checking topographic maps and enemy positions, many times also under enemy bombardment. We were given an extended horrendous description of the Battle of Chemins de Dames. Letters home express what the home folks want to hear; they can't accept the soldiers' truths. As the war grinds wearily on, the despairing Dartemont writes:
This book is just as valid today as it was when it was written [1930]. I thought of Dartemont as an Everyman figure, a little man caught in brutality over which he had no control. The author pulled no punches in description; everyday events and fighting were not prettified, down to telling us about the soldiers' lice-ridden clothes and bodies. Dartemont's story and the emotions he and other soldiers feel and express so forcefully could be those of any soldier in any war; this novel just happens to be set in World War I. It is a powerful, savage anti-war, novel/memoir. It excoriates the brutal, rigid military system in toto and its hidebound officer hierarchy. Common soldiers give voice to their concerns. Even some few Germans chime in, with the same sentiments. Awarded the Croix de Guerre and made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Chevallier drew on some of his own experiences; I'm sure that's why the insights and the 'action' were so unforgettable and so vivid. Some of the scenes were absolutely chilling and made my blood run cold.
We are taken through his whole military career from enlistment to the Armistice. It details Dartemont's coming upon dead Germans for the first time and his shock at how the bodies have been blown apart. In his first battle, in which he kills no one he is wounded enough to send to the hospital. Nurses there care for gruesome, grisly wounds and are disappointed there are no tales of glorious exploits. None of the patients have any to tell them. On convalescent leave, his father can't or won't understand the war from the common soldiers' viewpoint. Neither do civilians in general. Return to the front takes him either to the fighting or behind the lines as 'runner' [delivering messages under fire] or making and checking topographic maps and enemy positions, many times also under enemy bombardment. We were given an extended horrendous description of the Battle of Chemins de Dames. Letters home express what the home folks want to hear; they can't accept the soldiers' truths. As the war grinds wearily on, the despairing Dartemont writes:
"No end seems in sight. Every day men fall. Every day we have less trust in our own luck....[Some] old hands who have been there from the start believe themselves immune, invulnerable, but most believe any luck will turn....Here everything is planned for killing...and yet we want to stay alive....the horror of war resides in growing anxiety: continuation, repetition of danger." Death can be seemingly random.
This book is just as valid today as it was when it was written [1930]. I thought of Dartemont as an Everyman figure, a little man caught in brutality over which he had no control. The author pulled no punches in description; everyday events and fighting were not prettified, down to telling us about the soldiers' lice-ridden clothes and bodies. Dartemont's story and the emotions he and other soldiers feel and express so forcefully could be those of any soldier in any war; this novel just happens to be set in World War I. It is a powerful, savage anti-war, novel/memoir. It excoriates the brutal, rigid military system in toto and its hidebound officer hierarchy. Common soldiers give voice to their concerns. Even some few Germans chime in, with the same sentiments. Awarded the Croix de Guerre and made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Chevallier drew on some of his own experiences; I'm sure that's why the insights and the 'action' were so unforgettable and so vivid. Some of the scenes were absolutely chilling and made my blood run cold.
July 17, 2017
When I chose this book to read next, I noted the irony of my having commented about the explicit violence in Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord. But in that it was the sadism involved and it's being personal rather than general. There are a lot of adjectives to describe The Great War, but I wouldn't use sadistic, other than that I'm sure there were sadists among the combatants, probably on both sides. The works I've been reading don't include that aspect, thankfully.
I also read recently Under Fire, which covers a lot of the same ground thematically, if not literally, as this one. This is much better written - or I read a much better translation. This one covers the war from declaration to armistice, where the Barbusse ends in 1916. Both claim to be novels, but, as both are written in the first person and by combatants, it isn't difficult to think these are more memoir than fiction.
Chevallier was wounded by shrapnel fairly early, spent time in hospital, then returned to his unit. He was able to give a broader picture of the war. He witnessed death and killing - a lot of it. He speaks to the futility of this war, especially that most of the generals/colonels giving battle orders seemed either unfamiliar with the uses and effects of the new technology, or simply didn't care. Machine guns had not been used in war before this one. Some of the other larger guns were also new to warfare. The orders were to just "go over the top" and run head on into the barrage of these weapons. When you weren't in the first group to go over, you tripped over corpses, or had to run by wounded men screaming in pain. When I think of it, it's just short of amazing that anyone came home alive.
I want to repeat that this is ever so much better than Under Fire. Even so, there were some tedious pages, and it doesn't rise to the level of a 5-star read.
I also read recently Under Fire, which covers a lot of the same ground thematically, if not literally, as this one. This is much better written - or I read a much better translation. This one covers the war from declaration to armistice, where the Barbusse ends in 1916. Both claim to be novels, but, as both are written in the first person and by combatants, it isn't difficult to think these are more memoir than fiction.
Chevallier was wounded by shrapnel fairly early, spent time in hospital, then returned to his unit. He was able to give a broader picture of the war. He witnessed death and killing - a lot of it. He speaks to the futility of this war, especially that most of the generals/colonels giving battle orders seemed either unfamiliar with the uses and effects of the new technology, or simply didn't care. Machine guns had not been used in war before this one. Some of the other larger guns were also new to warfare. The orders were to just "go over the top" and run head on into the barrage of these weapons. When you weren't in the first group to go over, you tripped over corpses, or had to run by wounded men screaming in pain. When I think of it, it's just short of amazing that anyone came home alive.
I want to repeat that this is ever so much better than Under Fire. Even so, there were some tedious pages, and it doesn't rise to the level of a 5-star read.
July 7, 2014
This is Chevallier's fictionalized experience in World War I. It was first published in 1930; then, as the Second World War arrived, it was suppressed. Its message: war is disgusting, ugly, and pointless. Fear is the only proper response. The generals, the commanders, the war planners, and officers, have their heads far up their butts; if they themselves were actually in combat, the war would get resolved exceedingly rapidly.
I would not choose to read three (or even two) war novels back to back, but if that's up your alley, you could read this as part of a trilogy with All Quiet on the Western Front and The Stalin Front: A Novel of World War II.
June 7, 2020
"Instead of thinking, they believe all that they are told, all that they are taught. They choose their lords and masters without judging them, with a fatal taste for slavery."
Like any sensible person, I hate war, but if I had to pick a favorite war, at gunpoint, in a trench, surrounded by corpses, I'd probably choose World War I. The reason why is that because of an accidental, historical concatenation of circumstances, mostly technological, that meant for the first time a lot of people could both be completely destroyed and get all the gory details in detail. The more salient the horror, you could argue, the more likely it will be avoided, hopefully, for all time.
That's not likely.
Chevallier, who served in the frontlines, like that other master of the trench horror novel, Dorgeles, whose work I recently read as well, brings to the fore even more than the latter the sheer stupidity of war, of how men expect other men somewhere else to die for them for very, very stupid reasons. The narrator, a thinly-veiled Chevallier, haplessly makes his way through battle after battle, meeting others who cannot reconcile themselves to the utter absurdity of what is happening around them and the complicity of their betters--on either side--in the horrors they are witnessing. When Chevallier muses at some point that generals forced to fight each other over the top of a trench would likely bring the war to an end right quick, we have to wonder: why don't we do this now?
Like any sensible person, I hate war, but if I had to pick a favorite war, at gunpoint, in a trench, surrounded by corpses, I'd probably choose World War I. The reason why is that because of an accidental, historical concatenation of circumstances, mostly technological, that meant for the first time a lot of people could both be completely destroyed and get all the gory details in detail. The more salient the horror, you could argue, the more likely it will be avoided, hopefully, for all time.
That's not likely.
Chevallier, who served in the frontlines, like that other master of the trench horror novel, Dorgeles, whose work I recently read as well, brings to the fore even more than the latter the sheer stupidity of war, of how men expect other men somewhere else to die for them for very, very stupid reasons. The narrator, a thinly-veiled Chevallier, haplessly makes his way through battle after battle, meeting others who cannot reconcile themselves to the utter absurdity of what is happening around them and the complicity of their betters--on either side--in the horrors they are witnessing. When Chevallier muses at some point that generals forced to fight each other over the top of a trench would likely bring the war to an end right quick, we have to wonder: why don't we do this now?
April 22, 2017
I've read three books on WWI this week. Without doubt this one was the most graphic and captured the brutality, pointlessness and evil of war in the trenches of WWI.
A novel based on the author' own experience which is also interesting in that the man survived five years of fighting.
Very descriptive of the carnage and wounds experienced, anger at the Generals and politicians and respectful of his fellow soldier where fear was a daily experience.
It is probably one of the best WWI novels written.
A novel based on the author' own experience which is also interesting in that the man survived five years of fighting.
Very descriptive of the carnage and wounds experienced, anger at the Generals and politicians and respectful of his fellow soldier where fear was a daily experience.
It is probably one of the best WWI novels written.
October 13, 2025
4,5⭐️
L'experiència personal en la primera línia de foc de Gabriel Chevallier narrada a través del seu personatge principal el Jean Dartemont durant la Primera Guerra Mundial. Un text colpidor on Chevallier ens endinsa en les atmosferes amb tot luxe de detall. La cruesa de la guerra mostrada tal com és des de dins, mostrant-nos que l'heroisme i la defensa de la pàtria és cosa dels discursets dels governants i dels comandaments militars per llençar al poble a la guerra que únicament a ells els interessa. La veritat de tot, els sentiments reals dels qui s'han vist obligats a jugar-se la vida és la por, tal com ens mostra encertadament el títol del llibre i que l'autor s'encarrega de deixar-ho també ben clar en el text, i l'absurditat de tot plegat.
M'ha agradat també que Chevallier no hagi fet del llibre unes memòries a l'ús, sinó que escollís fer-ne una novel·la, basada això sí amb les seues pròpies vivències al front, escrita amb una prosa i unes descripcions d'una qualitat literària innegable. Sens dubte, es tracta d'una veritable meravella imprescindible sempre tant per preservar el record com per ensenyar-nos allò que no s'hauria de repetir mai més.
L'experiència personal en la primera línia de foc de Gabriel Chevallier narrada a través del seu personatge principal el Jean Dartemont durant la Primera Guerra Mundial. Un text colpidor on Chevallier ens endinsa en les atmosferes amb tot luxe de detall. La cruesa de la guerra mostrada tal com és des de dins, mostrant-nos que l'heroisme i la defensa de la pàtria és cosa dels discursets dels governants i dels comandaments militars per llençar al poble a la guerra que únicament a ells els interessa. La veritat de tot, els sentiments reals dels qui s'han vist obligats a jugar-se la vida és la por, tal com ens mostra encertadament el títol del llibre i que l'autor s'encarrega de deixar-ho també ben clar en el text, i l'absurditat de tot plegat.
M'ha agradat també que Chevallier no hagi fet del llibre unes memòries a l'ús, sinó que escollís fer-ne una novel·la, basada això sí amb les seues pròpies vivències al front, escrita amb una prosa i unes descripcions d'una qualitat literària innegable. Sens dubte, es tracta d'una veritable meravella imprescindible sempre tant per preservar el record com per ensenyar-nos allò que no s'hauria de repetir mai més.
«Els homes són estúpids i ignorants. D'aquí ve tota la seva misèria. En comptes de reflexionar, es creuen el que els expliquen, el que els ensenyen. Es trien caps i amos sense jutjar-los, amb un gust funest per l'esclavatge. Els homes són xais. Això és el que fa possibles els exèrcits i les guerres. Moren víctimes de la seva estúpida docilitat»
«Al punt més àlgid de la por, hi ha homes que es tornen valents, d'un valor terrorífic perquè és desesperat. Els herois purs són tan infreqüents com els genis. I sí, per obtenir un heroi, cal destrossar deu mil homes, val més que prescindim dels herois. Perquè pensi que potser seria incapaç de dur a terme la missió a la qual ens destina. Només quan som davant la mort podem respondre de la nostra tranquil·litat a l'hora de morir»
November 24, 2016
One of the best books I have ever read. The true anti-war novel. There's no false bravery here.
October 13, 2025
and, once again: another book for class…
August 10, 2016
This book is totally incredible. Similar to All Quiet on the Western Front, or Storm of Steel, or Under Fire, it is the story of a young soldier on the frontlines of WWI. In fact, though it is a novel with the hero Jean Dartremont it feels like a memoir, or really a series of scenes from the war, which only add to its power. It starts in the carnival atmosphere of a France celebrating the beginning of a war. An old man who is slightly reticent in his patriotism and jingoism is promptly beaten up. Though Dartremont is an "Outsider" and resists any conventional thought, his curiosity and sense of adventure lead him to sign up. And why not, how bad could it be and how long could it go? Bootcamp is boring, demeaning, and Dartremont quickly realizes the incompetence of his leaders (though not how much and how bad the consequences could be). And then off to the front where shit really hits the fan in his first assault and he is promptly filled with shrapnel and sent back to recuperate, much to the jealousy of all his companions (poilus) who quickly undertand the awfulness and danger of war. There are more terrifying battles scenes, winters in the mountains, evil officers risking the lives of soldiers they don't like while never getting close to the front, injuries and explosions and deaths and hardships.
But this book is much more than a description of a terrible time and place (though it is that and I haven't done it justice here). It is also an exploration of fear, of the motivations that make men do things they know are stupid and useless and will probably cause their deaths. It is hard to understand and the reader gets the sense Chevallier is trying to figure it out for the whole book. It is also a vicious indictment of the leaders—both militarily and politically—and the whole mindset of a Europe that had no idea what a modernization in this sense was going to be like. In this centenary of the First World War this is a book that should be read, and thought about in light of today, when the leaders are probably no smarter and the national consciousness just as prone to sacrifice innocent victims for no cause.
But this book is much more than a description of a terrible time and place (though it is that and I haven't done it justice here). It is also an exploration of fear, of the motivations that make men do things they know are stupid and useless and will probably cause their deaths. It is hard to understand and the reader gets the sense Chevallier is trying to figure it out for the whole book. It is also a vicious indictment of the leaders—both militarily and politically—and the whole mindset of a Europe that had no idea what a modernization in this sense was going to be like. In this centenary of the First World War this is a book that should be read, and thought about in light of today, when the leaders are probably no smarter and the national consciousness just as prone to sacrifice innocent victims for no cause.
August 6, 2014
Fear is an antiwar novel. Given the date of its publication I think it must have been one of the first of the Great War antiwar novels. A reviewer of this recent New York Review edition and translation commented that we've read similar treatises before. And perhaps we have, but it still seems fresh. Part of it is certainly because it's so well written, and part of it may be that there aren't that many novels of the war from the French perspective available in English. My own judgment is that it is among the finest of the novels to come out of the war.
As the title indicates, the novel is about the fear of men in combat. It's about men who almost expect to die and who accept the fact of it and the horrible deaths of those around them. It's about overcoming that fear, too, as the protagonist Jean Dartemont does. His own willingness to bravely face death are triumphant moments in the novel. So it's about fatalism, too. as are all very good war novels. There is no "Vive la France" or thoughts of the greater good in a political context. The tone is without patriotism. These are soldiers whose thoughts are on their own survival, not France's. Dartemont says near the middle of his career as a soldier at the front, "I can assure you that none of the men I saw fall around me died thinking of his country, with 'the satisfaction of having done his duty.' I don't believe that many people went off to fight in this war with the idea of sacrifice in their heads, as real patriots should have done."
This is gritty and realistic and brims with truth. Though thirty years ahead of Joseph Heller's great creation John Yossarian, Chevallier's Jean Dartemont is cut from the same cloth. Yossarian would sympathize and approve.
As the title indicates, the novel is about the fear of men in combat. It's about men who almost expect to die and who accept the fact of it and the horrible deaths of those around them. It's about overcoming that fear, too, as the protagonist Jean Dartemont does. His own willingness to bravely face death are triumphant moments in the novel. So it's about fatalism, too. as are all very good war novels. There is no "Vive la France" or thoughts of the greater good in a political context. The tone is without patriotism. These are soldiers whose thoughts are on their own survival, not France's. Dartemont says near the middle of his career as a soldier at the front, "I can assure you that none of the men I saw fall around me died thinking of his country, with 'the satisfaction of having done his duty.' I don't believe that many people went off to fight in this war with the idea of sacrifice in their heads, as real patriots should have done."
This is gritty and realistic and brims with truth. Though thirty years ahead of Joseph Heller's great creation John Yossarian, Chevallier's Jean Dartemont is cut from the same cloth. Yossarian would sympathize and approve.
November 4, 2021
En 2014 Roger Waters lanzaba un film con el maravilloso espectáculo The Wall, al que añadía distintas imágenes de él en la actualidad visitando la tumba de su padre y otros lugares relacionados.
En varias de esas escenas don Roger lleva un libro en la mano y, uno, que por costumbre siempre se interesa más por los libros que la gente lleva que por la gente en sí, fue loco a hacer un pause y zoom para averiguar qué título era.
El Miedo, de Chevallier, es un seco, crudo y por momentos irónico viaje a las trincheras de la primera guerra mundial. Sabía, que si Waters lo citaba y lo ponía en plano de aquella manera sería una obra de alto contenido antibelicista, como efectivamente es. Aquí no hay gloria, no hay grandes nombres, conquistas ni soflamas de ningún tipo.
Admito que esperaba más dado el lugar o la persona que “me lo recomendó”, pero de todas maneras es una obra muy recomendable porque muestra de primerísima mano lo patético y vergonzoso que es el acto bélico.
Para terminar este, mi círculo con El Miedo de Chevallier, se me ocurre poner una frase de las tantas buenas frases que sus soldados dicen, relacionado a ese loco que me lo recomendó y que tantos gustos me dio, que tanto me voló la cabeza. Gracias, Roger.
“Hay veces en que sería mejor ponerse a cantar una canción que malgastar saliva en discursos patrióticos.”
En varias de esas escenas don Roger lleva un libro en la mano y, uno, que por costumbre siempre se interesa más por los libros que la gente lleva que por la gente en sí, fue loco a hacer un pause y zoom para averiguar qué título era.
El Miedo, de Chevallier, es un seco, crudo y por momentos irónico viaje a las trincheras de la primera guerra mundial. Sabía, que si Waters lo citaba y lo ponía en plano de aquella manera sería una obra de alto contenido antibelicista, como efectivamente es. Aquí no hay gloria, no hay grandes nombres, conquistas ni soflamas de ningún tipo.
Admito que esperaba más dado el lugar o la persona que “me lo recomendó”, pero de todas maneras es una obra muy recomendable porque muestra de primerísima mano lo patético y vergonzoso que es el acto bélico.
Para terminar este, mi círculo con El Miedo de Chevallier, se me ocurre poner una frase de las tantas buenas frases que sus soldados dicen, relacionado a ese loco que me lo recomendó y que tantos gustos me dio, que tanto me voló la cabeza. Gracias, Roger.
“Hay veces en que sería mejor ponerse a cantar una canción que malgastar saliva en discursos patrióticos.”
here-i-halted-unfinished-so-far
August 13, 2019I think I bought this book last year, having read about it, but I misunderstood what it was: a scandalous (at the time) book about WWI from the French angle -- perhaps similar in that way to All Quiet on the Western Front. I started it and it seemed good; just not in accord with my reading priorities. I gave it away. So many books! Of course now, wouldn't you know, I started some Patrick Modiano, and it may have been helpful....
July 28, 2014
I found this roman à clef of the First World War from a novelist-participant on the French side more gripping and psychologically engaging in some parts than All Quiet on the Western Front. Having read extensively already about the French experience in la Grande Guerre, I may be biased; still, there doesn't have to be a rivalry for which one is the better, since they each have their memorable moments and rewarding insights about soldiers at war - war in general as well as this particular war.
I actually read the French-language Livre de Poche edition and the NYRB Classics edition at the same time, just for the fun of experiencing another's translation with my own still fresh in my mind. In some instances, I found the translator Malcolm Imrie's rendering even more powerful than the original French, so I have a good sense for why he received the Moncrieff Prize for the translation. The vivid language and imagery describing the front - especially the main character Jean Dartemont's first impression of it - is striking. So, too, is the chapter - somewhat de rigeur in WWI novels - when Dartemont returns home and offers reflections about the distance between himself and his father more nuanced than the corresponding episode that Remarque presents. Interior reflections and insights, such as his observation about the difference in his attachment to comrades he happened to know before the war compared with those met during it, are also striking.
Sometimes Dartemont's character seems inconsistently drawn. In one episode he's spouting like a grizzled Bolshevik to a clutch of nurses about patriotism, bravery, and heroism as insidious illusions that perpetuate the murderous exploitation of the common soldier; in another he's a more naive interlocutor asking questions in an almost catechism style of a Falstaffian character named Nègre, who pops up now and then. There are a few outright misogynistic comments in the first half of the novel, too, that can't really be explained away or contextualized as of the time (it was published in 1930) or expressing the brutality that war engenders in soldiers' attitudes.
I actually read the French-language Livre de Poche edition and the NYRB Classics edition at the same time, just for the fun of experiencing another's translation with my own still fresh in my mind. In some instances, I found the translator Malcolm Imrie's rendering even more powerful than the original French, so I have a good sense for why he received the Moncrieff Prize for the translation. The vivid language and imagery describing the front - especially the main character Jean Dartemont's first impression of it - is striking. So, too, is the chapter - somewhat de rigeur in WWI novels - when Dartemont returns home and offers reflections about the distance between himself and his father more nuanced than the corresponding episode that Remarque presents. Interior reflections and insights, such as his observation about the difference in his attachment to comrades he happened to know before the war compared with those met during it, are also striking.
Sometimes Dartemont's character seems inconsistently drawn. In one episode he's spouting like a grizzled Bolshevik to a clutch of nurses about patriotism, bravery, and heroism as insidious illusions that perpetuate the murderous exploitation of the common soldier; in another he's a more naive interlocutor asking questions in an almost catechism style of a Falstaffian character named Nègre, who pops up now and then. There are a few outright misogynistic comments in the first half of the novel, too, that can't really be explained away or contextualized as of the time (it was published in 1930) or expressing the brutality that war engenders in soldiers' attitudes.
Read
August 14, 2016 So, so good. I've read a lot of the English WWI autobiographies (although this is technically a fiction, it's obviously informed by Chevallier's own experience in the trenches), Goodbye to All That, etc., and I have to say this blows it out of the water. As the title indicates, Chevallier seeks to strip bare the pointless horror of mechanized warfare, and to redefine the doughy infantrymen as one who, with the rarest exceptions, is defined largely if not exclusively by a desperate, all consuming, immediate physical terror. If you've ever wondered about what you would look like if you were forced to grab a rifle and hold a trench at the Somme, pick this one up and feel bad about yourself. Strongly recommended.
January 12, 2015
Of all the books that I have read that have graphically described the Western Front of World War I, including the now iconic "All Quiet On The Western Front", this is, perhaps, the best and most descriptively informative. This is probably due to the great translation and the readability and accessibility of the modern prose used.
"Fear" is a testimony of not only the author's service and experiences, but, also delves into the class divisions in society of the time that dictated who directed the war and who decided on who actually took up arms and, most of the time, made the ultimate sacrifice, in many cases a sacrifice long forgotten.The upper classes won out on all fronts, until 1918 at least, but, as history now tells us, the men who returned from the war effectively overturned the class ridden societies of Europe, ensuring that the gentrified and those in the "big houses" never again decided their fates in favour of protecting their own lives, wealth and lifestyles. This graphically described tale, yet memorable novel, is one of a number of savagely frank novel-memoirs of the misnamed Great War that appeared throughout Western Europe within a year of one another. Frederic Manning’s “The Middle Parts of Fortune” shook English readers in 1929. In the same year, Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” seemed treasonous to the fascists of Germany. “Fear” created shock and resistance when it was published in France in 1930. This historic record simply laid bare the truth and the horrors of war.
In many respects, it is written in anger and with some satire directed at the French army’s war mongers and at their disregard for their men, treating them as cannon fodder and pawns in their version and strategy of the War.
Much of what Chevallier wrote, because of the clarity and simplicity with which he wrote, strikes a heart pervading chord with the reader, and I believe should be accepted as a definitive eye-witness reportage on World War I. France had 1.3 million war dead, most of their parents or widows of dead soldiers left to live through what remained of their lives without their loved ones. Attaining a perspective around this is difficult. 1.3 million families affected! This review will not detail the upsetting descriptions of the corpses, the injured and the emotionally damaged that litter most pages of this book. Yes, good triumphs over evil, good people triumph over bad people. This is the general result that history tends to tell us. But, these triumphs come with a price. And, who are the good people and who are the bad people? Both sides are comprised of both. Is a German shopkeeper more evil than a French shopkeeper in the opposing trench? And, the old maxim always holds: the victor writes the history.
“Fear”, when published was a controversial challenge to civic and official memory of the war. To quote: “In 1939,” Chevallier wrote in his preface to a 1951 edition, “its author and publisher agreed to suspend sales. Once war has come, the time has passed for warning that it is a disastrous venture.”
Chevallier, like Remarque and other eminent writers of the record of WWI, captures the great national fervour and propaganda in the nations of Europe that drove the mobilisation of this lost generation, the innocence and naivety of recruits, the deadening geography of the trench system of the Western Front, the decency of some NCOs and other officers, the emotional detachment of some Generals orchestrating men's actual lives often a distance away from the battlefields and sometimes with a casualness and even a whimsey, the sacrificial madness and the chaos of campaign plans; the inevitable physical and mental disabling (in our hero Dartemont’s case, from grenade fragments) of survivors, the hospital wards of the field hospitals, the prized glimmers of sensuality and empathy from some nurses, the mercy and compassion of an old flame who saves a soldier’s home leave from nullity, and the dreaded return as a veteran to the trenches, to being “suspended between luck and death".
The reader has a tendency to think, “I’ve read all this before,” but, this very consistency and descriptive repetitiveness across many books strengthens the truthfulness of these writers' descriptions of this terrible War.
To quote from one review I read: "Chevallier’s narrative remains radioactive with pure terror, frightening in a way later accounts don’t quite manage.....His tone is so inveigling and so amiable as he inducts us like witnesses into that great European madness with which the past century began, decades before most who will read this translation were born. It’s also hard to believe, once we’re deeply engaged with the book, that Chevallier is dealing with events that are nearly a hundred years in the past, deploying prose that’s almost as old. We are lucky his voice came through."
I feel lucky that I have read this book. Privileged. Lives sacrificed. Lives forgotten. Names forgotten. Tragic. Family lives of those relatives and friends left behind were lived under a shadow for most of the 20th Century as a result. A must-read for anyone interested in World War I and what the day-to-day war of the soldier was like, not that non-combatants can ever truly understand the horrors and terrors witnessed by the combatants. A great book. An education.
"Fear" is a testimony of not only the author's service and experiences, but, also delves into the class divisions in society of the time that dictated who directed the war and who decided on who actually took up arms and, most of the time, made the ultimate sacrifice, in many cases a sacrifice long forgotten.The upper classes won out on all fronts, until 1918 at least, but, as history now tells us, the men who returned from the war effectively overturned the class ridden societies of Europe, ensuring that the gentrified and those in the "big houses" never again decided their fates in favour of protecting their own lives, wealth and lifestyles. This graphically described tale, yet memorable novel, is one of a number of savagely frank novel-memoirs of the misnamed Great War that appeared throughout Western Europe within a year of one another. Frederic Manning’s “The Middle Parts of Fortune” shook English readers in 1929. In the same year, Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” seemed treasonous to the fascists of Germany. “Fear” created shock and resistance when it was published in France in 1930. This historic record simply laid bare the truth and the horrors of war.
In many respects, it is written in anger and with some satire directed at the French army’s war mongers and at their disregard for their men, treating them as cannon fodder and pawns in their version and strategy of the War.
Much of what Chevallier wrote, because of the clarity and simplicity with which he wrote, strikes a heart pervading chord with the reader, and I believe should be accepted as a definitive eye-witness reportage on World War I. France had 1.3 million war dead, most of their parents or widows of dead soldiers left to live through what remained of their lives without their loved ones. Attaining a perspective around this is difficult. 1.3 million families affected! This review will not detail the upsetting descriptions of the corpses, the injured and the emotionally damaged that litter most pages of this book. Yes, good triumphs over evil, good people triumph over bad people. This is the general result that history tends to tell us. But, these triumphs come with a price. And, who are the good people and who are the bad people? Both sides are comprised of both. Is a German shopkeeper more evil than a French shopkeeper in the opposing trench? And, the old maxim always holds: the victor writes the history.
“Fear”, when published was a controversial challenge to civic and official memory of the war. To quote: “In 1939,” Chevallier wrote in his preface to a 1951 edition, “its author and publisher agreed to suspend sales. Once war has come, the time has passed for warning that it is a disastrous venture.”
Chevallier, like Remarque and other eminent writers of the record of WWI, captures the great national fervour and propaganda in the nations of Europe that drove the mobilisation of this lost generation, the innocence and naivety of recruits, the deadening geography of the trench system of the Western Front, the decency of some NCOs and other officers, the emotional detachment of some Generals orchestrating men's actual lives often a distance away from the battlefields and sometimes with a casualness and even a whimsey, the sacrificial madness and the chaos of campaign plans; the inevitable physical and mental disabling (in our hero Dartemont’s case, from grenade fragments) of survivors, the hospital wards of the field hospitals, the prized glimmers of sensuality and empathy from some nurses, the mercy and compassion of an old flame who saves a soldier’s home leave from nullity, and the dreaded return as a veteran to the trenches, to being “suspended between luck and death".
The reader has a tendency to think, “I’ve read all this before,” but, this very consistency and descriptive repetitiveness across many books strengthens the truthfulness of these writers' descriptions of this terrible War.
To quote from one review I read: "Chevallier’s narrative remains radioactive with pure terror, frightening in a way later accounts don’t quite manage.....His tone is so inveigling and so amiable as he inducts us like witnesses into that great European madness with which the past century began, decades before most who will read this translation were born. It’s also hard to believe, once we’re deeply engaged with the book, that Chevallier is dealing with events that are nearly a hundred years in the past, deploying prose that’s almost as old. We are lucky his voice came through."
I feel lucky that I have read this book. Privileged. Lives sacrificed. Lives forgotten. Names forgotten. Tragic. Family lives of those relatives and friends left behind were lived under a shadow for most of the 20th Century as a result. A must-read for anyone interested in World War I and what the day-to-day war of the soldier was like, not that non-combatants can ever truly understand the horrors and terrors witnessed by the combatants. A great book. An education.
November 20, 2018
First published in 1930 this novel is based heavily on the author’s own experiences fighting in the Great War. Like his character, Jean Dartemont, he fought throughout the length of the war, incurring a relatively minor injury, and gaining despite his criticism and anti-war stance, many medals.
The real strength of the novel is in its scenes in the trenches, which occupy the large part of the story. No detail or horror is spared in Chevallier’s descriptions (translated so expertly by Malcolm Imrie), and it is incredible to read such powerful writing from someone who was actually there and suffered so much.
Amidst the very worst conditions on the battlefield Chevallier shows his hatred of his officers, and the dislocation from society that he and his peers experience; such a subversive commentary for 1930.
As the armistice has just celebrated its hundredth anniversary there can be few more appropriate times to read the book.
The real strength of the novel is in its scenes in the trenches, which occupy the large part of the story. No detail or horror is spared in Chevallier’s descriptions (translated so expertly by Malcolm Imrie), and it is incredible to read such powerful writing from someone who was actually there and suffered so much.
Amidst the very worst conditions on the battlefield Chevallier shows his hatred of his officers, and the dislocation from society that he and his peers experience; such a subversive commentary for 1930.
As the armistice has just celebrated its hundredth anniversary there can be few more appropriate times to read the book.
My patrimony is my life. I have nothing more previous to defend. My homeland is whatever I manage to earn or create. Once I’m dead, I don’t give a damn how the living divide up the world, about the frontiers they draw on maps, about their alliances and their enmities. I demand to live in peace and to slowly become what I must become.. Killing has no place in my ideals.
September 29, 2014
Although Gabriel Chevallier titled the novel based on his World War I experiences "Fear", it covers a much wider palette--anger, foolhardiness, boredom, even irreverence, mostly directed at authority. What the reader will not find in Chevallier is any notion of glory and honor. In fact, at leave early on in the novel, his narrator, Jean Dartemont, is alienated even by the gauzy patriotism of his home town. The war itself is frequently hellish, but not without touches of wit, especially from Dartemont's friend, Negre, who imitates a nitwit general of his own invention who seems like a cross between Orwell and Heller. This is a work of controlled anger but also of intense humanity, with sharp portraits of not just Dartemont's fellow infantrymen, those who die and those who survive, including the occasional German, surrendering to the French or even working out codes of mutual warning with them. But there is no heroism here except that of having the luck to survive. The tragedy of the war is not just that the war lasted long enough to develop tank warfare, aerial bombardment, even chemical warfare, but that so much humanity was wasted to achieve so little.
August 27, 2023
No sé si es el mejor libro de la primera guerra mundial. Sí sé que es el mejor que he leído.
Con grandísimo toque autobiográfico sigue la trayectoria de un joven francés cuando comienza la guerra y todo en las trincheras. Importante este punto ya que no se narran las batallas famosas, ni los generales y sus tácticas maestras, se trata de las vivencias del soldado de a pie.
Tal vez en cuanto a ritmo y algunas sensaciones sea más de tres pero le acabo poniendo cuatro estrellas porque —como si fuese una novela de personajes clásica— en ningún momento deja de lado a nuestro protagonista, no lo abandona, no es un mero mecanismo narrativo, se siente cariño por él.
Un apunte extra solo para lectores de Malaz (Steven Erikson): sabéis que una de las críticas que se hace a la mencionada serie es que los soldados rasos o infantería salen con diálogos o reflexiones filosóficas como si fuesen grandes pensadores. Pues este libro es eso, un individuo que antes de convertirse en escritor participó en la gran guerra y cuenta lo que pensaba, sus reflexiones y vivencias.
Con grandísimo toque autobiográfico sigue la trayectoria de un joven francés cuando comienza la guerra y todo en las trincheras. Importante este punto ya que no se narran las batallas famosas, ni los generales y sus tácticas maestras, se trata de las vivencias del soldado de a pie.
Tal vez en cuanto a ritmo y algunas sensaciones sea más de tres pero le acabo poniendo cuatro estrellas porque —como si fuese una novela de personajes clásica— en ningún momento deja de lado a nuestro protagonista, no lo abandona, no es un mero mecanismo narrativo, se siente cariño por él.
Un apunte extra solo para lectores de Malaz (Steven Erikson): sabéis que una de las críticas que se hace a la mencionada serie es que los soldados rasos o infantería salen con diálogos o reflexiones filosóficas como si fuesen grandes pensadores. Pues este libro es eso, un individuo que antes de convertirse en escritor participó en la gran guerra y cuenta lo que pensaba, sus reflexiones y vivencias.
February 22, 2016
Very brutal and vivid descriptions of life in the trenches, what one has do, go through to survive and then what one become's. It just boggles my mind what those soldiers had to endure on a day to day basis. The author's description of his first sight of the front is something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, total hell unleashed. A worthy read for anyone interested in WWI.
August 10, 2016
Avendo letto molta letteratura della II guerra mondiale, considero questo uno dei classici assoluti, nella sua disarmante onestà e nella sua capacità di scandagliare la psicologia di uomini portati ai limiti della resistenza in condizioni spaventose, senza ipocrisie e senza veli. Assolutamente coinvolgente.
July 23, 2016
Placeholder review
A pretty brutal and essential read. Lots of great historical information without much of a story. But war is like that.
A pretty brutal and essential read. Lots of great historical information without much of a story. But war is like that.
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