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pturnbull's review
5.0
Very interesting low-key book about a man from the French provinces who, through education, manages to enter the professional class as an engineer. He enlists in the French Army as an officer. The night before he joins his unit, he meets a woman, Clemence, at the train station and finds her very desirable. She, too, is enormously attracted, and they spend the night together in his Paris apartment. She's like no one he's ever met--she's a modernist and travels in artistic and musical circles. She was at the train station saying good-bye to her lover, a composer.
Upon meeting his unit, Adrien is ordered to reconnoiter and report back on the location of the German forces. It's very early in the war--this is one of the earliest battles. But Adrien falls into the mud, struck, and isn't found until a few days later. From the time of his injury on, he becomes very detached. It turns out that he is severely disfigured with facial injuries and placed in the officers' ward where they keep others such as himself, few at first, then more, as the casualties increase. He spends five years in this ward, forming an intense friendship with his two neighbors.
Adrien emerges as a heroic ideal. He does not complain, he accepts his fate with a kind of numb passivity, and eventually he joins his friends in ongoing suicide watches in their ward, the types of injuries treated there being so devastating. But even they are shook up when they discover that a woman, Marguerite, is one of them, for, "We had been fighting this war for the sakes of our women and children, and to find a woman here among us in the hospital had a doubly negative effect on us--we had failed in our mission, and we were powerless to punish the enemy who had dragged us into this war."
Towards the end of the war, the convalescents notice new "stirrings of rebellion" among the troops. "Even the officers had lost their pride in doing a job that had to be done." The chivalric attitudes that energized the country's entrance into war have now broken down completely, leaving cynicism and disgust at "the idiots on the general staff." The three men in their haven have been sheltered. They maintain their dignity and appreciate the honors that the government gives them, pleased by the recognition. As time passes and war threatens again, we learn about the depth of the friendship that the three share. Anyone reading the book might think that these men were the lucky ones.
Upon meeting his unit, Adrien is ordered to reconnoiter and report back on the location of the German forces. It's very early in the war--this is one of the earliest battles. But Adrien falls into the mud, struck, and isn't found until a few days later. From the time of his injury on, he becomes very detached. It turns out that he is severely disfigured with facial injuries and placed in the officers' ward where they keep others such as himself, few at first, then more, as the casualties increase. He spends five years in this ward, forming an intense friendship with his two neighbors.
Adrien emerges as a heroic ideal. He does not complain, he accepts his fate with a kind of numb passivity, and eventually he joins his friends in ongoing suicide watches in their ward, the types of injuries treated there being so devastating. But even they are shook up when they discover that a woman, Marguerite, is one of them, for, "We had been fighting this war for the sakes of our women and children, and to find a woman here among us in the hospital had a doubly negative effect on us--we had failed in our mission, and we were powerless to punish the enemy who had dragged us into this war."
Towards the end of the war, the convalescents notice new "stirrings of rebellion" among the troops. "Even the officers had lost their pride in doing a job that had to be done." The chivalric attitudes that energized the country's entrance into war have now broken down completely, leaving cynicism and disgust at "the idiots on the general staff." The three men in their haven have been sheltered. They maintain their dignity and appreciate the honors that the government gives them, pleased by the recognition. As time passes and war threatens again, we learn about the depth of the friendship that the three share. Anyone reading the book might think that these men were the lucky ones.
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