Customer Reviews

Under Fire (The Best Sellers of 1918 Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Under Fire (along with Remarque's All Quiet...) remains for me one of the most powerful descriptions of the madness and horror of war that I've ever read. What I found most compelling in Barbusse's novel is the author's use of language in describing "the tortured earth" during a passage in which French troops are being shelled. The author introduces you to a score of characters whom you really get to know as you experience the unspeakable conditions under which they are forced to survive and fight. One hesitates to use the term beautiful in referring to descriptions of carnage and agony but I can think of no other way to convey the power and, yes, poetry of his words. His language is clear-graphic-the "scenes" are enormously vivid. It would, in the hands of a competant director-one with vision- make a great film particularly if done in black/white! A great book written with sympathy towards those victims who are asked to participate in the insanity of war.

The introduction to "Under Fire" tells us that the book was overwhelmingly well received at the time of publication and was read widely all over Europe. However, he also tells us that some critics rejected in on the grounds that it was unrealistic, and that Barbusse's account moved too far away from the reality of life in battle, and also featured a number of historical errors, and was overall, unconvincing.

The essential point to remember is, that "Under Fire" is fiction -- it is not war reportage or a literally factual account of the period.

Barbusse's work is being compared to Ernst Junger -- that is not accurate in any way. Junger's chilling yet beautifully written war diaries look at war as some kind of pagan Germanic rite, and he writes in a prose and narrative style that verges on the mystical. But also, Junger paradoxically views the carnage with an emphasis on 'chivalry' and 'gentlemanly conduct' , a prism on violence which is, admittedly, often difficult to comprehend to the modern reader. Also, Junger's work is fact -- Barbusse's book, it should be emphasised -- is fiction. "Under Fire" focuses on the drudgery of war, the banal boredom of waiting for days on end with nothing to do but eat rancid food,tend to the wounded,share wet tobacco, and drink dirty water in stinking, claustrophobic trenches.

Junger's book is written from the point of view, first and foremost, of aristocratic officers, whilst Barbusse's fiction is focused on foot soldiers and peasants. Junger's book focuses on bizarre, dreamlike, nightmarish and surreal aspects of war, expressed in a style which is highly cerebral and literary. Barbusse's book focuses on the stretcher bearers, the low ranking soldiers, who have to clean up the soldiers' ordure and waste.

I do not, by any means, wish to undervalue the footsoldiers' perspective on the war, or to judge it as 'less important' than Junger's officers -- That is clearly not the case.But, it is rather the case that Barbusse's account simply fails to hold the reader's attention in the same way that Junger captivates.

There are moments of brilliance in "Under Fire" -- Clouds are described as being like "wicked angels" and the sorry footsoldiers appear like "survivors from some monstrous shipwreck" -- but such moments of compelling, almost mystical description are not typical of Barbusse's style.

I respect Barbusse's place in the 'literary canon', and I respect his perspective on the war, so I will give it three stars. But I have to say, I did not enjoy the book and would not recommend it.

Overall, I was deeply disappointed by Barbusse's book.

Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) was a middle-aged journalist when the guns of August were unleased on Western Civilization in 1914. Barbusse enlisted in the French Army serving eighteen months in the trenches. This novel was published in 1915 to huge sales and critical acclaim. Many officers requested copies of the book to distribute to their troops. It is a brutal, graphic and heartbreaking account of life and sudden death on the battlefield.
One of the literary pluses of the novel is the descriptive and poetic power of Barbusse's prose. We learn of the lives of his fellow soldiers, their longings and their desire to live through the bombardments which fall on their heads. Barbusse tells us of their love affairs, fears and dreams. He describes in detail the grisly death of many of his fellow soldiers. We lean over their shoulder as they read letters from home; meet cowards and civilans who have no concept of the horrors of modern technological warfaree. This is a description of war totally devoid of all romanticism. It is war as it is actually experienced. Barbusse's descriptions of the dead will never be forgotten by the reader.
The last pages of the novel are the most powerful. Barbusse makes a plea for pacifism as he excoriates the governmental and military donkeys who lead men into senseless suicidal charges across the no man's land of trenches. Barbusse became a well known anti-war advocate who became a Communist party member. Barbusse died in Moscow.
Under Fire is in that select company of great World War I novels and autobiographies which include Robert Graves' "Good-bye to All That"; Ernst Junger's "Storm of Steel"; John Dos Passos "Three Comrades" Vera Brittain's "Testament of Youth" and Erich M. Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front." It is an essential soldier level view of the mechanized murder which was World War I and remains all wars. The book proves General William Tecumseh's Sherman's remark that "War is Hell."

The underlying historical significance of "Under Fire" comes from when it was written more than from the writing. First published serially in 1916, it was widely read in the trenches of WWI by both French and British troops, and the book took on an importance for the thousands trying to exist in those awful conditions. In addition, Barbusse was an insightful witness, and had spent 17 months in the war, and certainly had been under fire. Other famous books were written considerably later and inevitably have a different perspective because of it (not necessarily inferior, but certainly different).

Personally, I find Barbusse to be a compelling and effective writer, although his analysis of the war is more a cry of rage than a consistent argument. Taken together with Jules Romain's Verdun it makes for a valuable portrait of the perspective of the "poilu."

After reading this book I was surprised to see it had an equal rating with "Storm of Steel", I would not even put them in the same categorie. This book had very long dry spells that took away from the few interesting chapters. The last few chapters dealing with the battle and aftermath are the only reason I gave it three stars.

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

This is an excellent anti-war novel by a writer who fought in one. All should read this book, lest we forget the horrors of war.

(In 2003, I searched all of Paris to find the 1917 translation of this book. I found it in Berkeley, California, at a used bookstore and got ripped off. Then I found it re-released by Penguin Classics in 2004. Both the 1917 translation and the 2004 are good.)

Under Fire is a fantastic war memoir. It is brutal, gentle, horrifying, and somehow sweet all at the same time. Scenes from this book stick in my memory like they were my own experiences. Brilliant work, second only to Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel, perhaps, in Great War literature.

This book is Ok, but its a hard read at this late time....
Not exactly sure how to state it, but the book is dense...it does not equal "All's Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich M. Remarque, or "Storm of Steel" by Ernst Junger...

Barbusse wrote it after spending a VERY brief time at the front. For whatever thats worth. It has been catagorized by most historians as total fiction since then, with good reason. Barbusse was a stretcher-bearer; never a rifleman or front-line 'soldat'. He spent little time there.

It falls under the genre of "war is hell" and the "lost generation" of literature from WW1. (Nothing against them, by the way).
In my opinion its a difficult book to read, by 2001 standards.
Worth your while, if you can find it cheap - but don't expect anything monumental or any revelations in it...