Points Summer Book Club

The first thing about Chapter 1 that struck me, and struck me hard, was the author's rendition of how the cultural and social authority of his society had been shattered by the war. Here's the key passage:

For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, or progress -- to the future. We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrase and cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.

It's important to keep in mind that European civilization, prior to this war, had reached a pinnacle of material and social progress. The sense of optimism and faith in the old order -- even after the French Revolution -- was boundless. But as Baumer and the infantrymen learned, all that civilization was merely a thin layer of skin over a skull. What's especially interesting about this introductory chapter, I think, is how vividly he conveys how the experience of combat -- a kind of combat unprecedented in history -- destroyed their faith in their own socieety. "The world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces." That's something beyond disillusionment, isn't it?