Book: All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Krishna
What a brilliant book! Some reviewers feel that this is one of the best books about World War I to ever come out and I can see why it evokes such sentiments. The author himself is a veteran of that war on the German side and he certainly knows what he is talking about.
It makes fascinating reading. The background is that this whole story is narrated by Paul Baumer, who is a German soldier fighting for his fatherland in World War I. Hard hitting, very intellectual and thought provoking, this brings out the futility of the war in one of the best ways I have ever seen described. Though this book was published in 1929, it reads as well today as any other classic book.
It first came out serialized in German periodicals but was banned in Nazi Germany (when it came to power subsequently). It has been translated into 22 languages and the English translation in my hands came out in 1929 as well.
Paul Baumer is at the front. He has friends but his army, just before he joined the group, was decimated with many deaths. Kemmerich is in bed, not realizing that he has lost a leg (amputated) and would soon be dying too. His health visibly deteriorates and his fellow army cadets keep him in blissful ignorance of both.
But he learns the truth and gives his now unused boots to Muller, his colleague.
The book realistically portrays army life. There are talks of the individual soldiers – the resourceful one Katczinsky (“Kat”) who can find anything anywhere. He finds meat and firewood in what is supposed to be a completely destroyed place where there should be nothing. There is a philosopher soldier (Kropp) who muses why corporals and generals do not have one on one with the enemy to decide who won instead of sending a huge number of young men to their deaths in the name of war.
Corporal Himmelstross, the merciless leader, was a postman in his previous life and underlings wonder what his personality was then and the pointlessness of the ‘discipline’ imposed on them in some areas because the leaders have absolute power.
There are descriptions of shells wounding the horses and how heart rending it is to put them all down and also gory descriptions of horses running with their entrails spilling out of their wounded and split stomach, lowing in agony. Gritty, painful descriptions that bring to life the brutality of war.
There is a great scene where the soldiers who enlisted right after college wonder if anything is the same after this. ‘How can we hold down a job after this experience?’ wonder the recruits. There are very gory scenes of bomb victims that make your stomach churn.
The war goes on and the clowning among the remaining (alive) recruits proceeds too. The author skillfully juxtaposes everyday pranks in the barracks against a sudden bombing raid that changes the mood instantly.
An instance of the clowning is the way they steal the goose and almost get bitten by a dog that was guarding the farm – the narration is simply hilarious . Also, the shell shock of the new recruits and how they deal with it is intense.Eri
The starkness of war is brought vividly through descriptions that do not hold back: You read about soldiers alive after their skull is blown open so that you can see the brain, soldier who tightly holds an artery of his hand in his mouth to prevent bleeding to death, soldiers who drag themselves – or try to do so – to safety when the lower part of the body is missing (after a grenade blast) and so on.
It is also poignant where he struggles to deal with the peace of everyday life when he goes on a two week vacation to his hometown to meet his dad, mom and sister and how everything seems different and uninteresting. (Not that he loved the war, anyway). The everyday concerns of the family seem so drab.
The scene where he is caught behind the enemy lines in a foxhole is beautifully described. Again and again the author brings out the futility of war not by preaching but just describing the actions and also through conversations among soldiers and it hits hard. Like the German soldiers (yes, all the heroes are Germans) saying that ‘if our priests say that our cause is just, and the French priests say that their cause is just, how do you know who is telling the truth in this war?’ or ‘I don’t feel offended by the poor sods who are fighting us. They are obeying some big politician’s decision same as us.’
Along with the details of the futility of war and how innocent lives are sacrificed on all sides, there is also a very poignant description of what the war experience does to young lives with ‘the only thing that they have known for years is to kill people… with whom they don’t have any personal grudges’. When the war is over, they do not have any skills that they can use in their civilian lives.
Tragic, moving, poignant, deeply thought provoking.
9/10
– – Krishna (March 2019)