It was only later by reading this wonderful book that I learned the reason that they were not shell craters but mine craters, explosions from the Earth through saps background dug into the hill. Imagine quickly the radical side of it to the occupants of the trench a few meters above (French or German, for this joyous tradition was practiced equally by both sides)
I would advise future readers of this book to bring the IGN map of 25 000 th environsVigneulles-les-Hattonchatel GPS: IGN3213E to better appreciate the geography of the area is located where most of the story and understand the hardness of the situaton French soldiers located under fire from Germans who occupied the ridges Meuse.
Some may be surprised at the lack of sensation in the Lieutenant Genevoix story. Here war is a regular horror, no major outbursts victorious as Ernst Junger or blurb at home Barbusse. Every day is sufficient unto itself with its torrents of mud, the cold, the snow, but also a ray of sunshine, a bird or the relative wellbeing of rest at the back.
At Genevoix, it smells right and lived. The accuracy of dates gives a lot of strength to the story, all the characters you meet, whether officers or simple hairy, are flesh and bone and not worthy of Epinal images cartoons.
Death lurks here and kill people, without glory, like a surreal lottery wanton by the clash of arms. "Those 14" is a sequence that brings together various small novels Genevoix wrote about his memories and notes between September 14th and May 1915 to the end of the Battle of Eparges. Initially, we are still at war movement, then we are witnessing the gradual burial (this is the case to say!) Of hosts.
Genevoix style is very pure, sometimes poetic, but not seeking the effect, the harsh living conditions do not need. From the literary point of view, this is certainly the cheapest book on this war. When I closed the book I was a bit cold and the impression of having spent myself all these months in this part of Meuse.
