''The Comedy of Charleroi'' () is a 1934 short story collection by the French writer
Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
Pierre Eugène Drieu La Rochelle (; 3 January 1893 – 15 March 1945) was a French writer of novels, short stories and political essays. He was born, lived and died in Paris. Drieu La Rochelle became a proponent of French fascism in the 1930s, ...
. It consists of six loosely connected stories based on Drieu La Rochelle's experiences as a soldier during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. An English translation by Douglas Gallagher was published in 1973.
Plot
So began the battle of
Charleroi
Charleroi ( , , ; wa, Tchålerwè ) is a city and a municipality of Wallonia, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. By 1 January 2008, the total population of Charleroi was 201,593. , Belgium, August 21, 1914, in the first month of the (not so) Great War. Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, a 21-year-old, inexperienced French officer, was at first exhilarated, a fighting man at last, and then chastened by a shrapnel wound. Returning to the lines weeks later he was wounded again. After recovering from that he and other French soldiers joined the British in the
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...
, from which he was evacuated with amoebic dysentery. Recovered from that he joined a regiment at the
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun (french: Bataille de Verdun ; german: Schlacht um Verdun ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...
to be so seriously wounded he was removed from active service. This slender volume (212 p) of short-story/memoirs is his looking back at some of the events, the men he knew, the ideas and emotions that swept through him.
[http://www.allinoneboat.org/2015/01/26/the-comedy-of-charleroi-courage-and-cowardice-in-ww-i/ ]
Contents
* "The Comedy of Charleroi" ("La comédie de Charleroi")
* "A Living Dog Is Better than a Dead Lion" ("Le chien de l'écriture")
* "Expedition to the Dardanelles" ("Le voyage des Dardanelles")
* "The Infantry Officer" ("Le lieutenant de tirailleurs")
* "The Deserter" ("Le déserteur")
* "End of a War" ("La fin d'une guerre")
References
External links
''The Comedy of Charleroi''at the French publisher's website
1934 short story collections
French-language books
French short story collections
World War I books
World War I fiction
Works by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
Éditions Gallimard books
Short stories set in Belgium
Short stories set in France
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