Not the least of the virtues of Stanley Kubrick's movie version of Paths of Glory is that it has been a chief help in rescuing Humphrey Cobb's 1935 novel— now appearing, as they say, on your neighborhood book-stand. One of the rare bonuses of work in fiction-and-film is to be sent back to the book. Kubrick's great film still tends, in critical retrospect and perspective, to be superior in most respects. But brought back into its own, Cobb's Paths of Glory appears as a thoroughly worthy World War I successor to Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, the model that inspired but did not overwhelm Cobb.

There is, of course, no way to dismiss that influence of Crane. It presides at the very opening of the novel. The "younger" and "older" soldiers with whom the book begins, Duval and Langlois, recall "the youth" and "tall soldier" of Crane. Much like Crane's Henry Fleming, Duval is a romanticizing recruit looking forward to a theatrical war experience.

"The Orchestration of the Western Front ... and I've got a front-row seat. It's glorious. Magnificent!"