"Im Westen Nichts Neues" is the original title for Erich Maria Remarque's war novel, known in english as “All Quiet on the Western Front.” I honestly find my impression of this book hard to put into words, so let me start out by saying that I think everyone who is invested in the future of our world should read this book in its entirety. I had read “All Quiet on the Western Front” in parts before, but I found from cover to cover, this is so much more than a novel. Hidden within the pages of Remarque's writing are the small, and not so small revelations of young officers and soldiers during their time fighting in, what was supposed to be, the war to end all other wars. The astounding thing about the writing is that it it reads like poetry- but somehow avoids being heavy handed and overly gruesome. That is not to say that there isn't any gore, it is a book about one of the bloodiest war in the history of the world. This book also brings up the question of morality, and whether or not it has a place in war.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” was written in the late 1920's in Berlin, and was first published in German in 1928, nine years after the peace treaty of the first world war. The novel was banned in Germany during the second world war, and was burned on Nazi fires because it depicted the Wehrmacht (German Military) in a unfavorable manner. In 1938 Remarque lost his German citizenship, and then proceeded to live out the rest of his life in Switzerland, and then the United States. Luckily “Im Westen Nichts Neues” was translated into twenty different languages, and was available to the rest of the world.
The most heart wrenching passage for me was at the very end of his home visit, after talking to his mother, the main character a German soldier, Paul reflects:
“I bite into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed with my fists. I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless- I will never be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for everything that is so comfortless and without end. I ought never to have come on leave.” [p 185]
Doesn't it cut you to the core? I honestly think that if more people took the time to read this novel, and others like it, war would not be as common an occurrence. Because Remarque takes us into the mind, and the stream of consciousness of a young soldier. He exposes the reader to the horrors of the war in the moment, with the benefit of time and wisdom. This is a book for the ages, and will continue to feel modern because of the style in which it was written, and because Remarque was able to tell his truth about war, and the strife, and happiness which accompany war.
A thought for the evening:
The pen is mightier than the sword, and a book makes a dandy shield.
- BookBender
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