Under Fire (Annotated)

Henri Barbusse's Under Fire is one of the defining novels of the First World War, a stark, episodic chronicle of French infantrymen living and dying in the trenches. Written in a documentary yet intensely lyrical style, it rejects patriotic romance in favor of mud, fear, boredom, comradeship, and sudden annihilation. Its fragmented structure and collective viewpoint place it at the threshold of mo...