All Quiet On The Western Front — Erich Maria Remarque (1929)*
In this semi-autobiographical story; Erich Maria Remarque draws upon his own experiences at the front-lines of The First Wold War.
All Quiet On The Western Front is not comfortable reading. It is a raw, piercing account of the hellish realities of trench warfare, and a sobering reminder of the generation of young men eternally entombed in it’s wrath. Here is a young man’s vivid and impassioned plea to appreciate the utter, utter futility of war.
“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.” — Erich Maria Remarque, Preface
I didn’t have much enthusiasm to read this book. I have plucked it from the bookshelf, toyed with the cover and flicked through the pages many times — always ceding, deflated by the fragments of trauma and suffering so obviously embedded within. Actually, my impetus to finally read the story came as I bogged myself into another book — Steven Pinker’s enormous Better Angels Of Our Nature. It was Pinker’s discussion of the idea that novels and critical exposé born from the First World War, like Remarque’s, are the crucial cornerstones of alternative conflict critique that steamrolled the second half of the 20th century.
I felt it to be a compelling argument, and so, sucked in a deep breath and began to read.
Published in 1929, eleven years after the close of the war, the novel seemed to serve Remarque as a means to understand his own wartime trauma. In doing so, by vehicle of his grief, and by gift of his remarkable openness, Remarque handed the public a war story that in it’s brutal honesty, cut through the twisted glorification of The Great War that was so voraciously spun by the established media.
Guiding us through the novel is twenty-year-old German volunteer soldier Paul Baumer. It is Paul’s first person account of events that we are introduced to a group of young men, bound together in a brotherhood of youth, disillusionment and tragedy. All of who are battling with the feeling of being strung and duped into fighting for patriotic ideals that have been watered down in the telling light of experience.
Set during the closing year of the war, with Paul and company, we wade through the quagmire of trench warfare, the stench of overflowing ‘hospitals’, the jarring public misunderstanding of front line combat and the heartbreak of inescapable death.
As the novel navigates through the year, we soon understand that Paul and the boys’ journeys are not signified by the success of a fulfilled mission, or an annexation of tactical land, but rather a journey marked by the gradual erosion of their youth. As members of their band drop and their morale recedes, as the lace-up boots are passed on — the boys’ weary perspective on life, what’s right and what’s important, consume the reader in a most emotional way.
There were moments in this novel that simply broke me. A particularly harrowing one, comes when Paul finds himself seeking shelter in the same blown-out, water logged shell hole as a young French soldier. In a spasm of action, attack of be attacked, Paul kills the Frenchman, only to immediately plunge into a shock of regret, heartbreak and guilt. Dead, and certainly no threat, Paul sees the Frenchman with understanding eyes. Not a propagandistic beast with a thousand heads; not even a menacing looking man, Paul realises that the Frenchman is painfully like himself. Young, unassuming — simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The wrong time is a theme the plucks at Paul throughout the novel. He laments for his fellow German soldiers just as he laments for those young men who have been broken, in body and in mind on the other side of the front.
“Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony — Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?” — Paul Baumer
However bleak the story may be, a surprising triumph of the novel it’s ability to retain moments of humour, camaraderie and even rational perspective amongst the abject tragedy. In such moments of lightness, Remarque reminds the readers of the individuals beyond the uniform. In flickering breaks from the bleakness, we admire the mettle of Paul and the other young men.
An exemplar quip, that comes in a moment of jesting, as the boys debate the illogical reasons for how a war even starts is this gem…
“…Mostly by one country badly offending another,” answers Albert with a slight
air of superiority.
… Tjaden pretends to be obtuse. “A country? I don’t follow. A mountain in
Germany cannot offend a mountain in France…”
Here, humour preserves their youth, interrupting their reality if only for a moment. However, as they quickly come to pass, what was once light, serves to only heighten the heartbreaking dichotomy of their dire circumstances.
All Quiet On The Western Front is a superb article of history and an essential text that taps directly into the core of human existence. Paul’s narration is painfully observant to his own feelings. In his reflections, we understand he is being drawn away from his old life, to one marred by numbness and detachment. Through Paul, we are left to contemplate how heavy existence must be amongst such needless death. How breaking it must be, to understand that survival now will not remedy the mental scars never to wane.
I appreciate now just how impactful this book must have been at a time when such stories did not get the opportunity to see the light of day. This is a book that should continue to be read and shared for both it’s vivid portrayal of history and it’s universal plea to appreciate the sanctity of all life.
An admirable, gut-punching book.
*English translation by A. W. Wheen
