War

Right off we have descriptions of war -- World War I trench warfare specifically -- that more intensely convey the horrors of the immediate experience of ground-combat than any we have had before, although stretches of Gustave Hasford's "The Shorttimers," James Jones' "The Thin Red Line " and Norman Mailer's "The Naked and The Dead" come close. Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is comparably intense, but more as elegiacally recalled than of directly experienced horror. By contrast Hemingway' combat descriptions in “A Farewell to Arms” seem strenuously poetic. The after shock of this experience is unforgettably portrayed as a persistent hammering sound in pne's head of combats past.

Unless you are a completist and feel the need to get both, don't bother with Berg's translation: it's inferior to Mandell's in many ways. His decision to use British slang to approximate L-F C's argot is unfortunate, and at times laughable...