Wednesday 25 February 2015

Read in 2015 - 7: Im Westen nichts Neues

„Im Westen nichts Neues“ was the next-to-last book from the pile of educational reading put together as my last year’s birthday present from my sister. It is the shortest of the pile – and the most terrible one.


The author, Erich Maria Remarque, gives an account of a simple soldier’s experience in WWI – an account that is sobering as well as sober. Even the most dramatic and horrible scenes are presented in a very down-to-earth, undramatic manner; there is nothing “loud” about the book, which makes the desperate fight for survival appear even more poignant. 
The main character is Paul, a young soldier who heads directly from the class room to the battlefield at age 18, along with his class mates, originally instigated by the patriotic speeches of their teacher.
As soon as the boys (they can hardly be called young men at that stage) arrive at their barracks for military training, it becomes obvious that everything they thought important so far, everything they learned at school and in their respective families, has no value anymore.

The reader follows Paul as he turns into a soldier, fights in the trenches, always desperate for food, clean water and a place to rest, forms friendships and loses his old class mates one by one on the battlefields, escapes death narrowly more than once, and thinks about his life in the context of the whole “lost generation” of young men who have not had time to grow roots in their civil lives before they are destroyed forever by the war, even when they escaped its grenades.

One chapter describes a two-week leave Paul uses to visit his family. He soon realizes that he can’t simply slip back into his former life; he isn’t the same person anymore, and feels unable to talk about what is really going on out there, where the war actually happens. For me, this was maybe the saddest chapter of them all: The life Paul once knew and enjoyed is so close, and yet unreachable.

The first time this book was made into a film was in 1930. “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Lewis Milestone won the Academy Award for “Best Film” that year. In 1983, Elton John wrote “All Quiet on the Western Front”, an anti-war song referring to the film.

Interestingly, the author himself never claimed his book to be political. In the foreword, he says that he wanted to tell of the Lost Generation (a term coined by Hemingway).
The Nazis were not at all happy about the book (first published in 1928) – to them, this was anti-war propaganda, and just like the author deserved to be libeled, the book deserved to be burnt.

It was widely thought for some time that Remarque based the book mainly on his own experience in the war. In fact, though, he fought in the trenches “only” for a few weeks (and not years, like Paul in the book) before he was wounded and ended up in a field hospital, where he wrote down what other soldiers told him. So Paul's experience is very much a collective experience, shared by countelss men during those dreadful years.

This was a sad and terrible read, but as strange as this may sound, a very good read, too (and what a contrast to the one I read and reviewed before this one!). I think this book is important to know, and I am glad my sister included it in the pile.

12 comments:

  1. That's a classic - you have made me want to re-read it (my copy is actually dated 1929 and belonged to my father). I somehow feel that the literal translation of the German - 'nothing new in the west' is more descriptive than 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. But maybe that's just me. There was a later film - in the 70s or 80s - with Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine - not very good, I recall.

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    1. Yes, there was a film made in 1979, according to wikipedia. I must admit I have seen neither the first nor the second one.
      It is indeed a classic book, which is why my sister included it in her choice of books for me to read.

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  2. It's so sad what happens to people in war. It's important for us to know.

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    1. It really is. Books like that should be standard reading for any politician, because it's usually they who decide about a war without ever actively having to be part of it.

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  3. War is terrible and horrific but those growing up now seem to be desensitised by war games and seeing every war played out from the safety of the seat in front of a television. That scares me. War has become 'easy'.

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    1. All the more reason to include this book with schools' curriculums, no matter what country. The book is truly unpolitical in the sense that the author never passes any judgment about any of the parties involved; the soldiers, while fighting for their lives, know deep down that the enemy on the other side of the trench are just regular guys like themselves, with similar problems, joys and pains.

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  4. I am glad that you liked this book too, Meike. I read this book years ago and liked it. "Important to know" I agree with that statement.
    One thing I am remembering, Erich Maria Remarque was married to Paulette Goddard, and they...
    http://emrpg.org/ There, see if you can look at that...What fascinating people!

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    1. Thank you for that very interesting link! I did read up a bit about ERM before writing this review, so I knew he married one of his wives twice, and had many affairs before settling with Paulette Goddard.

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  5. We were supposed to read this in high school, but I think I did not, for whatever reason. It sounds like something I should read, but sad books are low on the list. Perhaps that should change. I so agree with your comment that books like this should be standard reading for every politician. But for many of them, I fear they don't care that much about people.

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    1. Usually, I'm not keen on sad books, either, and would have never chosen this for myself. But like I said in my review, it was a very good read in spite of the sadness, and I am glad my sister included it in her present.

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  6. Ive not got round to it
    Thanks fir the head up xx

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