Fear: A Novel of World War I [1930/2014] – ★★★★

“Above all, I must not think…What could I expect? To die? I must not expect that. To kill? That is the unknown and I have no wish to kill…I have no hatred, no ambition, and no motivation. Yet I must attack…”

“…we only have one homeland: the world” [Chevallier/Imrie, 1930/2014: 70, 110].

Gabriel Chevallier (1895-1969) was a soldier in the World War I and this experience shaped his novel Fear, a story where nineteen-year-old Jean Dartemont is cleared by the medical committee to serve in the war against the Germans. Dartemont is curious, but highly sceptical about the war, which he, like everyone else around him, first treats like an exciting explorative adventure, but which soon unveils itself to be what it really is – absolute horror. Fear is a passionate anti-war account, which gets progressively harrowing as the events in Dartemont’s life unfold in a spiralling motion. At the core of the novel is one simple statement – war is not a glorious feat but a dehumanising folly.

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