If you read only one single book, in your whole life, about World War One, let it be this book. The first portion follows the story of one French soldier, stoically disgusted from the beginning with the role he is expected - forced - to play. The book ends with a score of pages encapsulating the dreary geopolitical events and battles that took place in 1914 through 1919, giving the American reader a sobering look at three years of trench warfare that was not part of the American experience.

Graphic, heartbreaking, maddening. Painfully immediate, yet just beyond our grasp of the horror -- and the sheer scale of senseless destruction. ( )

This is one of my favourite graphic novels about war. His use of colour is great, and there are some really arresting illustrations, like the two pages of soldiers faces in various states of disfigurement. ( )

This was very, very good, too. I guess I would have liked to have given "It was the war of the trenches" 6 stars. ( )

Sarcastic. Utter despair. Apathetic acceptance of the fatal end of life. Rejection of God. Rejection of fate. Rejection of love of country. Rejection of the church (any). Pacifistic. Rejection of industry. Admiration of the Russian revolution.

Truly the spirit of the book from the very beginning lives up to the disgust inherent in the title.

Having recently finished several WWI memoirs this probably could have been more true if the main character has started out believing all the things this book rejects and then showed how the war changed him. Rather, from the beginning the main character damns his nation and the war. Not sure that is quite an accurate portrayal of the experience of the average French soldier and it would be amazing providence for someone with that attitude to have survived the whole war as the main character did. Except he does not believe in providence. ( )