Riot’s Classic Literature Reviews: All Quiet on the Western Front
War, huh, yeah. What is it good for? For all the fascination and content that is generated from arguably the worst aspect of society/mankind, it seems relevant to get into some classic literature involving the subject. With all the years that have passed since the 1929 publishing of All Quiet on the Western Front (by Erich Maria Remarque) you’d think humanity might have learned a lesson or two about avoiding the catastrophes of war. That’d be a big negative Ghostrider. I am not necessarily well-versed in history, nor have I read even a slightly impressive catalog of war-based fiction (pretty sure I’m limited to The Things They Carried, The Yellow Birds, and Night). But considering I have Catch 22 and War and Peace still on deck for classic lit I want to review, it looks like I’ll be getting a bit more exposure. With Netflix’s October 28th release of All Quiet on the Western Front, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to take on a content twofer; handling the literature review on Sunday and following up probably mid-week with a movie review. Like most people, what I lack in reading for the subject of war, I have certainly made up for in film watching (ex. Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor, 1917, Midway, Jojo Rabbit, Inglorious Basterds, I could go on). I’ve even played a number of wartime games like Modern Warfare and Battlefield. It all begs the question: why the societal fascination? What keeps people consuming content about a subject that the vast majority (by the grace of God) will never experience? Books like All Quiet on the Western Front, similar to dystopian literature, was always meant to be a warning, a beseeching to future generations not to repeat the mistakes of the past. But whether by proxy or by direct involvement, we’ve continued to soldier on (get it?), perpetually getting involved in, starting, or supporting the atrocities that leave people mentally and physically broken.
The Death of Innocence: All Quiet on the Western Front is written from the prospective of a 20-year old, German soldier named Paul Bäumer, who enthusiastically enlists with a group of friends who are convinced by their teacher that they are doing the right thing by serving their country. Stories from training camp quickly begin the young men’s decent into chaos and with a loss of one of their comrades very early on in the story, they are forced to “grow up” far quicker than any man should. Throughout the book, Paul is often found saying that he and his friends are much more experienced than new recruits that join their unit. The horrifying fact being that these “new recruits” are often the same age or even older than Paul and his compatriots. Yet their experience finds them surviving multiple skirmishes while the rest die around them (for example, rules they’ve learned about mustard gas, how long they need to leave their masks on and which areas they should avoid to not be exposed). Essentially being schoolboys, their arithmetic lessons are being replaced with lessons of survival. As time moves on through the book, these young men develop a numbness to death. It is their comradery and maybe even simply the strength of the human spirit that keeps them moving forward, because whatever ideology brought them there quickly faded away. At one point in the story, when Paul secures a leave from duty, he returns home only to realize he can’t really enjoy anything about regular life anymore. Whatever part of him that was able to enjoy “peace” has died on the battlefield.
The Atrocities of War: If there’s one thing that’s consistent about war and its depiction, it is the plethora of horrible things that happen to those who participate in it. World War I was infamous for things like trench warfare, mustard gas, and flamethrowers, each of which make a ghastly appearance in this book. If the nations of the world can be credited with anything regarding war, they certainly have no lack of ingenuity for how to end the lives of their enemies. Remarque, writing from his own personal experience, uses the first-person narrative to emphasize the horrors of the things these men went through. I found the depictions involving mustard gas to be particularly haunting and the descriptions of the after effects of exposure to be stomach churning to say the least. His writing during the battle scenes is as chaotic as I imagine any battlefield would be, often diverting away from the events of the battle to simply focus in on the emotional trauma experienced by these soldiers. The often gory portrayals of battle wounds, explosions, and their aftermath carry over into the soldier’s minds long after they’ve seen them and even when describing times of “peace” (basically any time Paul is not actively fighting) Remarque emphasizes that how meeting simple necessities is no less traumatic than active conflict. Paul in particular, while being able set up defenses, throw grenades, and fireindiscriminately at enemy lines, isn’t really confronted with the atrocities of war until he has to murder a French soldier with a knife, then guiltily tends to the slowly dying man for multiple days until he passes.
The atrocities don’t end on the battlefield and it’s often the stories of what happens in between the battles that is the most disturbing. The young men are constantly struggling with hunger and disease. They are shown on multiple occasions having to deal with lice and going through another war of sorts with rats. Even a simple story of wanting to possess a dying man’s shoes after he passes is enough to highlight how numb the conflict makes these soldiers.
The Minority vs The Majority: This theme wasn’t touched on as actively as others, but it was certainly something you could pick up on through multiple parts of the story. Paul and his companions are all very disillusioned with the people who brought them to this conflict. Their teacher in particular, was happy to encourage them into enlisting and even lauded Paul for his service during his brief stint on leave. But Paul and his friends are consistently shown acting out on their disdain for authority figures. He often comments on the ludicrous notion that simple workers were suddenly soldiers and laments for the things these men could have been had it not been for the war. None of the young men even really understand why they are there and as they are exposed to more and more horrific situations; any reasoning for their presence immediately falls away. They understand that their presence in the war was orchestrated by a minority of those in power, thereby sentencing the majority of them to die.
Wrap Up: Usually, I’d spend a little more time breaking down some other themes of the story. But, to be perfectly honest, this is the hardest write up I’ve done (and I tackled the snooze-fest that was Moby Dick). It’s hard to point my finger on exactly why. Usually, when it comes to war films, the focus isn’t about the trauma. Socially, we do everything we can to actually steer away from this horrible aspect of kinetic conflict. It’s why veterans historically have had such a rough go at life after war, because we don’t want to think about what happens to these people after the smoke clears. We want to focus on patriotism (The Patriot), or love (Pearl Harbor), or bravery (Saving Private Ryan). But it’s the stories that get too real that really haunt people and are likely far more common; ones that show psychosis (The Hurt Locker), or senseless violence (Hacksaw Ridge), or brutal defeat (Lone Survivor). Man, there is a ridiculous amount of films about war. We really need to stop making them. Like I stated in the intro, telling these stories should always be a message of caution and a lesson in how not to let it happen again. Considering current events, I’m always shocked and dismayed at how quickly support is garnered to hop our next generation of youth right back into conflict almost immediately after we’ve escaped others. Maybe once we stop lying to ourselves about what these wars are actually about, then we can stop sending our kids to die like the characters in this novel.
Riot’s Rating: 9/10: It’s an incredibly fast read, I finished it in an undisciplined six hours. It’s haunting and it will mess you up emotionally. You’ve been warned.
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