A review by paulataua
The Inferno by Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien, Henri Barbusse

4.0

I first read ‘L’Enfer’ some fifty years ago as a displaced young man living in a seventh floor room converted from old servants’ quarters in Paris. Surprisingly, my room was a corner room that looked out onto the room of a young prostitute that spent her night bringing men home. How many nights did I sit there in the dark with my bottle of wine just watching? I was a voyeur reading about a voyeur, me through the window, and him through the crack in the wall. The power of the book was not lost on me then. Even this time, 50 years later, I recognize the importance of the difference between watching and living life, and how much passivity has seeped into our lives. Maybe it is a book for these days even more than those days years ago.