A very informative read - on a par with All Quiet on the Western Front

This is a genuinely good story. I'd call it a novel, but it's not. Not really. All these things happened. They just might not have happened to the author.

I've rarely heard a story which so clearly demonstrates how little society learns through the years. Yet, the opening scene could easily be the epilogue. The story opens with poignant observations about how much society (in this case, French) has forgotten about war. World War I is just declared and civilians are jubilant. La Marseilles is played throughout the streets. In one cafe, an old man - old enough to be a veteran of the last war, I think - refuses to stand. He refuses to join in the celebration. He seems to know what horrors lie ahead. And for that, the mob turns on him. It beats him and berates him. It decides that he is not a patriot and doesn't understand how swift and overwhelming victory will be.

Then we, the readers alongside the protagonist, go to war. The experience is, to borrow a phrase, hell. And through it, we readers understand the title of the novel. Fear. It builds slowly, erupts suddenly, and builds even higher. As the clock ticks down - we know when the war ends - fear builds in us. Will the protagonist make it? Or will he suffer the fate of the protagonist of so many million others? Will his death be just as senseless or will it, in some small way, matter? Throughout the story, the author erodes our hopes. There are no great acts of courage which are meaningful. There are no competent leaders - or none in positions to affect the outcome of the war - the churning death of millions of men running into range of the artillery and the machine guns. There is no hope. There is only fear.

Ending the book, I couldn't help but think back on that opening scene in the cafe in Paris. I could picture the protagonist being that old man at the outbreak of the Second World War. Prematurely aged by his experiences in the First, he stoops low, appearing old to the fresh-faced 19-year-old who sees him refuse to stand in celebration for the outbreak of war. Beaten by the mob. Knowing that the men who beat him believe what they are told, what they are taught, instead of thinking. Knowing that millions would soon be suffering nightmares less terrible than reality. Knowing that millions more would soon know fear.

In Fear, Chevallier largely avoids traditional plotting — the perspective of heroes, plumed generals, and military careerists — for chaos: the sudden booms, unexpected leaves, and horrors of WWI trench warfare. This is the world of Dartemont, a French infantryman, and his fellows. So Fear is exhausting like that, held together not by any long plotted tension, but by military exercises, fatigues, and occasional trips to the latrine under fire. You don’t see many Germans and heroes are rarely living. Intellect is punished with increased mental anguish. This is boring deadly blasts like a shelling.

In Fear, Chevallier largely avoids traditional character development. Characters are men stripped of personality. Uniforms of caked mud and lice:

"'I've had enough! I am the centre of the world, as each of us is for himself the centre of the world. I am not responsible for others' mistakes, I have nothing to do with their ambitions and their appetites, and I have better things to do than pay for their glory and their profits with my blood.'
[…]
'Dartemont!'
'Sir?'
'Go and check where the 11th have positions their machine guns. On the double.'
'Very good, sir!'"

In Fear, truth is dulled by repetition. The homeland doesn’t want it; its fever is unchecked. Of a drama composed by a general in the habit of writing “little plays in verse, somewhere between tragedies and revues,” Dartemont notes, sarcastically, that the:

"general’s sublime alexandrines, in which ‘trench’ rhymes with ‘French’ and ‘savagery’ with ‘Germany’ are greatly relished by the civilians, who stamp their feet with restrained enthusiasm. It is a real shame to let such energy go to waste; they should be given weapons immediately and taken to Champagne…"

In Fear, there is no going home really:

"I try to win [Caca] round, recalling our adolescent years together, our friends, our happiness, our former ambitions. But I cannot interest him. He smiles weakly and says: ‘It’s all over!’
'And what about poetry, old pal?' I reply.
He shrugs his shoulders: ‘Poetry is like glory!,’ then leaves because someone is calling him. A moment later he returns with steaming bedpan, turns his head away in utter disgust, and sneers: ‘There you are, poetry!’"

In Fear, death is the only real authority. Anyone postulating otherwise is suspect, probably hasn’t spent much time in the trenches:

"Where we’ve been, you only salute the dead."

Fear, in a paragraph:

"Let me give you a balance sheet of this war: fifty great men to go down in the annals of history; millions of dead who won’t be mentioned any more; and one thousand millionaires who lay down the law. A soldier’s life is worth about fifty francs in the wallet of some fat industrialist in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Vienna or anywhere else. Are you getting the picture?"