Biography

French novelist.

In the war books that I had read, there was sometimes mention of fear, but it was that of others. The author was a phlegmatic character, so busy taking notes that he calmly smiled at the shells.

About his novel "Fear": The book was received by various movements, and the author was not always treated well. But two things are worth noting. Men who had insulted him were to turn out badly later, their bravery having gone to the wrong camp. And that infamous little word, fear, has since appeared under proud pens. As for the infantrymen, they wrote: "True! That is what we felt and did not know how to express." Their opinion counted for a lot.

About his semi-autobiographical novel "Fear": The great novelty of this book, whose title was a challenge, is that it said: I am afraid. The author of the book felt that it would be impolite to talk about his comrades' fear without talking about his own. That is why he decided to take fear on his own account, first of all on his own. As for talking about the war without talking about fear, without putting it in the foreground, that would have been a sham. One does not live in a place where one can be torn to pieces at any moment without experiencing a certain apprehension .

When war is here, it is no longer the time to warn people that it is a sinister adventure with unpredictable consequences. It was necessary to understand this beforehand and act accordingly.

In my youth - when we were at the front - we were taught that war was moralizing, purifying and redemptive. We have seen what consequences these tricks had: mercantiles, traffickers, black market, denunciations, betrayals, shootings, torture, tuberculosis , typhus , terror, sadism and famine. Heroism, granted. But the small, exceptional proportion of heroism does not redeem the immensity of evil. Besides, few beings are cut out for true heroism. Let us have the loyalty to admit it, we who have returned.