Paths of Glory: A Novel and A Film of War, Books,
As local author Adam Hochschild makes the rounds with his latest, amazing book, To End All Wars [following King Leopold's…
View ArticleThe Absolutist: A Novel of War Time Refusal
John Boyne, born in Dublin in 1971, manages to summon the spirits of two very particular men, sent to fight…
View ArticleThe Devil in the Flesh: Adultery in WW I, France
Raymond Radiguet, the 16 year old author of The Devil in the Flesh / “Le Diable au Corps,” 1923, died…
View ArticleGenerals Die in Bed: A Novel from WW I
Generals Die in Bed (1930) is a slender and undeservedly little known novel from WW I, by Canadian-American, Charles Yale Harrison…
View ArticleA Farewell to Arms, or Not? WW I Through American Eyes
Pop the question: “WW I fiction?” and 10 out of 10 who have an answer at all will say “A…
View ArticleUnder Fire: A French Novel of WW I Trenches
Although All Quiet on the Western Front is the best known, and possibly the best written, novel of soldiers at…
View ArticleThe Good Soldier Švejk — Anarchic Humor Against War
Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk, ‘a certified idiot,’ tickles us into an anti-war, anti-militarism, anti-bureaucracy mood the more we read. Unlike…
View ArticleCompany K — Americans in France, WW I
William March’s 1933 novel, Company K, about an American Marine company in France for 9 months at the end of…
View ArticleThree Soldiers — A WW I Novel of John Dos Passos
It’s hard, reading today, to get a grip on the impact which John Dos Passos’ Three Soldiers had on the…
View ArticleWW I: On the Eastern Front in The Forest of the Hanged
World War I as it is written of and imagined in European and American minds is almost entirely of what…
View ArticleThe Comedy of Charleroi – Courage and Cowardice in WW I
“The captain … was due to retire in October. In the very first burst of fire he was swept out…
View ArticleThe First Casualty – A WW I Conscientious Objector as Sleuth
Ben Elton’s 2012 mystery, The First Casualty, is a fine combination of two popular literary genres: men at war and…
View ArticleWW I: Siegfried Sassoon As His Eyes Open
Siegfried Sassoon, despite his Germanic name, his wealthy family and Jewish heritage, became one of England’s most famous soldier-poets of…
View ArticleWW I: The Call of the Soil – Blood and Glory from France
Many of the novels written about World War I, by those who fought in it, didn’t appear until a decade…
View ArticleFear: A Memoir from The French Trenches, WW I
Fear: A Novel of World War I by Gabriel Chevallier, 1930 is such a powerful indictment of war that in…
View ArticleThe Monstrous Enterprise — Céline on the War
The first one-fifth of Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, [1934, Ralph Manheim translation, 1983] is from…
View ArticleParade’s End — Benedict Cumberbatch as England’s Last Tory
The 5 hour HBO/BBC mini-series, Parade’s End, (2012) with Benedict Cumberbatch as Christopher Tietjens, is a miracle of lossless compression,…
View ArticleBirdsong: A Novel of Love and War
If you’ve never read anything about life in the trenches during World War One, Birdsong: A Novel of Love and…
View ArticleThe Great Swindle: Opportunities in France, 1919
Pierre Lemaitre has won a substantial following both in his native France and abroad for writing crime fiction. His Commandant Camille…
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