Product Description

A graphic account of the First World War from the perspective of the French trenches. It powerfully evokes the mundane degradations of trench life as well as the drama and trauma of military action, showing how ordinary men responded to one of the greatest horrors mankind has inflicted upon itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #65701 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-25
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Henri Barbusse was born in 1873 and the novel UNDER FIRE is one of the most famous works of French literature of the 20th century. It expresses the disillusionment with war that led him to pacifism and then communism. His socialist novel CLARTÉ lentits name to a short-lived internationalist movement. He died in the Soviet Union in 1935.

Customer Reviews

One of the greatest - a classic.
This was a great book. I have read many, to try to understand and remember what my recent ancestors endured. This is one of the four definitive memoirs or autobiographical novels I have read on the subject. The others are All quiet, Storm of Steel and Her Privates We.

Storm of Steel, whilst having a certain melancholy, could not be described as anti-war! Her Privates We takles the position that warfare is sometimes necessary. All Quiet is famously anti-war. Under Fire is anti war, anti capitalist, anti class system, in some ways anarchic.

Barbusse was already a recognised author when he started this novel, and he wrote much of it whilst still in the Trenches. In my opinion, the characteristic trait of this novel are the lucid, visual descriptions of the battles and the field in which they occurred as a barren, consuming hell of mud, fire and death, and the men as having been reduced to barbarous troglodytes by the unending and pitiless misery of their existence.

Perhaps only a mind in which the scars of such an experience were still fresh could have penned such descriptive prose. The opening passage, in which men descend inexorably upon France from all over Europe to fight each other is shocking and moving.

The final chapters, in which the ordinary poilus find themselves philosophising (believably)over war, then mass hallucinate as an army of warmongers materialises from all corners of the horizon and pushes back the sky even more so. A stunning vision, which brought a lump to my throat.

Thyis book was out of print for years, and who's to say it will remain in print. Robin Buss's tranlation does the book great justice, so buy it whilst you can.

The best?
If you have any interest in the Great War whatsoever, then this book is a must. The best way of describing it is 'Faction'(ie the book is a work of Fiction, based on Barbusses personal experiences of the war - written whilst the war was still raging!)
I would put this book way above All quiet, Storm of Steel and Her Privates We. The differences between the attitudes of the German infantry and the humble Poilu is great. (read Ernst Junger)
This book should be made compulsory for all students studying this subject.

under fire
this is a good adjusted translation and a must reed. Written in 1917 it narates the horror of war in general and WW I in special.