It’s Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, the day the guns finally went silent in a Europe shattered by World War I. The Armistice was scheduled to begin at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. One bitter joke that made the rounds in the trenches – “Why didn’t they wait ’til the eleventh year?”
Of all the novels which emerged from the War to End All Wars, All Quiet on the Western Front is surely the greatest. While its imagery and the episodes it recounts did not exactly break new ground, Remarque captures both the external devastation of the war and the internal havoc it wreaked on a generation of soldiers. The fact that this story is about Paul Baumer, a German, matters little – it could be about Paul Bois or Paul Wood, or any young man from any country affected by the War. They saw the same horrors, suffered the same degradation, endured the same unendurable lives. But there was a difference even within the armies, and All Quiet on the Western Front unflinchingly told readers how an entire generation was lost.
Paul and his classmates join the Army en masse under the exhortation of their schoolmaster. Filled with patriotism and the orderly knowledge only young men fresh from the classroom could retain, they enter their training regime and begin to learn the ways of a random world. When they arrive at the front, they learn entirely new lessons about a chaotic world striving to kill them. They serve with men of all classes and from all regions of Germany, all of whom are gradually descending to the most basic levels of humanity. Paul and his friends have the farthest to fall, but the trenches eventually make all men equal.
When I was very young, All Quiet on the Western Front gave me a graphic illustration of war stripped of its illusions of honor. Only as an older reader did I become aware of Paul’s complete loss of self. Having gone straight from childhood to a debased manhood, Paul realizes that he has nothing to return to – unlike the older men, he cannot take up a pre-war life. Unlike the younger, he cannot return to a meaningful school life. That changed my understanding of the ending, which I had remembered along the lines of Richard Thomas’s portrayal of Paul in the 1979 movie. Remarque’s original is far more tragic.
The original title, Im Westen nichts Neues, translated literally from German means “In the West, Nothing New.” Whether Remarque meant it as literally as the translation suggests, or as a warning in light of the increasing aggression and xenophobia characterized by the rise of the Nazis is hard to say. Unfortunately, it seems that Ecclesiastes was and continues to be right.
Find All Quiet on the Western Front in the WRL catalog.
All Quiet on the Western Front lost a lot in translation. Wheen’s version is especially bad, putting in things that don’t even exist in the original. Wheen also had a tin ear when it came to German idiomatic expressions and wonderful plays on words. It’s worth the trouble of learning German, just to read Im Westen nichts Neues the way it was really written.
I read this book in high school. I’ve always wanted to read it again.
I read this book last year around this time and it stuck with me. The honesti and the brutality of the war and that feeling of being so small and insignificant. I had the misfortune of living through a war as a girl and I remember the days spent asking my parents what did we do to deserve this. Now as a bit older I still catch myself asking the same question.
This is a great book for those who wish to remember the human victims on both sides
My book group met to discuss City of Thieves yesterday, and a member whose family is from Alsace-Lorraine told us that every time they ate chicken, her grandmother would proclaim, “That’s another one the Prussians won’t get!” The impact of war lasts a lot longer than those who want to start them realize.
One good book; everyone must read for a sheer enjoyment.
Thanks for the post!
Reblogged this on rosalbax.
Hey Andrew!
I hope you’re well,
A bit off topic but I wrote a more easy to understand and eye-friendly explanation for Maslows hierarchy which I wondered if you wouldn’t mind linking to instead perhaps? I run a psychology revision website for students and I’m just trying to get it recognised a bit more by creating some more user-friendly content.
Check it out if you get a moment – I think your readers may grasp the concept of basic levels of humanity a bit better with it?
The Links here: http://www.loopa.co.uk/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs/
Let me know what you think? I Appreciate your time either way,
Saj