09/03/2025
Hey friends! Can anyone help me name this book?
It's a really evocative World War I story, and I'm not sure if it's fiction or based on real accounts.The story starts with a soldier digging trenches underground, and the whole thing is so hard and exhausting that he has to tie himself up with ropes so he can pull the shovel back each time.
Then there's this long sequence where another soldier, probably exhausted from guard duty, sleeps through his watch and gets caught by an officer, and the officer orders the soldier to be court-martialed later that day, but the soldier is so tired he doesn't even care, he just assumes he's going to be executed. But then when he goes to the place where he's supposed to be tried, which is deeper in the trench and more private, a deeper part of the trench that he's never seen before, (officer's quarters) the officer doesn't even remember why the soldier is there and he just wants to show him all these drawings that he's been doing. He goes, "Hey dude, look at my drawings, what do you think?" and the soldier goes, "What? Okay"? I'm not sure if the soldier was some kind of expert in this field in his civilian life, and I can't remember why the officer wants to show him his drawings, actually I'm not sure if that's even made clear in the plot or if it's just another random surreal thing that happens.
Not much to go on, I know, but does any of this ring a bell?
Maybe it's in All Quiet on the Western Front?
THANKS!!!
