Friendships rank among the finest gifts life offers. Some people thrill at the idea of digitization, others insist that there are many true connections, while a few, like the writer, keep count modestly and stay under a dozen. The aim here is not to spark a counting contest but to share a personal observation about one friend whose distinctive trait makes him memorable. Antonio Capape del Campo is a person who occasionally distributes books, often without waiting for special occasions. Among the volumes he handed over years ago was Fear by Gabriel Chevalier, a title that left a lasting impression.
Before diving deeper, a brief personal note about the father who shaped the reader in the writer. Lorenzo Fernandez Bailiff, a humble civil guard with a love for books, believed in the quiet, steady influence of literature. Financial constraints marked the family life, and the home library was modest, not a grand collection that would have allowed reading classics like Madame Bovary or Pedro Páramo on the shelves. Yet what mattered most was not quantity but hours spent sitting by the window, book in hand, a daily ritual that fostered a lifelong habit. He appreciated epic sagas, the grand narratives of the past, and biographies offering windows into lives lived with purpose.
The narrator would not claim to be a prodigious reader, surely not in the same league as many enthusiasts, but consistency mattered. A book is almost always open, sometimes two, and progress is measured not by speed but by staying with a story long enough to let it settle. More than fleeting news, the longing for a tradition interpreted by peers of a certain era has drawn the writer back to reread select passages—moments that surface again when a summer heat invites reflection on a previously quoted work.
Although the author lived through the events that inspired the book, the narrative is not a straightforward memoir. Years later, with a striking blend of strength and prose, the writer pursued a notable literary career, a fact that the pages themselves hint at. The narrative follows the experiences of a young French soldier during the Great War, known today as World War I. Two central threads quickly capture attention: war and fear, both woven with care to reveal more than battle reports alone.
War has always drawn the narrator, a pull rooted in a formative period of youth and later professional life in the military. While there are aspects of armed conflict that deserve scrutiny, this particular war invites deeper understanding: its precursors, its unfolding, and its outcomes have shaped modern humanity in profound ways. A simple image search reveals the moment when young Frenchmen boarded trains to the front. Faces initially seem unafraid or even eager, a surprising contrast to the dread usually associated with such a departure. The collective memory of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, crowned by the Second Reich’s triumph at Versailles, lingered as a nagging grievance. The Germans’ perceived military parade and the rapid advance into Paris fueled a sense of humiliation that, in French imagination, demanded a future reckoning. Many believed the opportunity would arrive with a new war in 1914. The conflict that followed proved brutal: deadly weapons, machine guns, and artillery inflicted staggering losses on both sides. Trench warfare created fronts that could seem nearly motionless, punctuated by close-quarters encounters that carried an almost intimate visibility of enemies. And the Treaty of Versailles, with its harsh terms imposed on the defeated, left scars that many historians argue helped sow the seeds of another catastrophe. It is important to note that the treaty’s flaws were debated then and continue to be debated now; this is not a claim that it alone caused subsequent conflict, but its role in shaping postwar resentments remains a point of discussion among scholars. [Citation: Chevalier, 1919–1920; historical analysis and context cited in scholarly debates]
One notable virtue of the book is the unflinching honesty of the author who admits fear rather than polishing the tale into a heroic veneer. The trenches held nights and days of panic, hours when pride gave way to vulnerability. Such candor surprised many readers who preferred a manufactured myth to the messy truth. The work questions the easy narrative of courage and instead offers a raw, human account of fear that sits at the core of the soldier’s experience. This plain-faced approach invites readers to confront fear alongside the protagonist, rather than from a safe distance. This is a rare trait in war literature; it challenges prevailing conventions and invites a more nuanced understanding of what soldiers endure. [Citation: Chevalier, WWI memoir reflections]
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