Well guys, it's been an interesting six months. Having thought this over a lot, I've decided to change the format from chapter-by-chapter/readalong entries, to straight review posts. Mainly because I don't especially like the slower pace needed for it, and also because it gets awkward when there's not much actually going on in a chapter. But anyway, let's finish this bad boy and get a layout change.
So, what did I think of All Quiet on the Western Front? As a case for anti-war sentiment, it's fantastic. As a straight novel, I'm not sure it quite ticked all the boxes for me.
Regarding story, it does read well. The tone is very well handled and there are several very memorable and harrowing moments, bar the odd strange moments (the screaming horses, for example). It's linear and easy to read, which I suppose helps to convey a message. So it's not the story that I have issues with.
Characters? Well, this is where I get a bit irritated. The relationships between the group are fantastic, what with the close wartime camaraderie and the soldiers' humour. The problem I have is that they all kind of blur into one figure, they don't really have enough personality to stand by themselves as characters. This is why whenever one of them died, I would get sad about it (admittedly) but not as sad as I would have been if I'd known them more intimately as people. It made the deaths seem a bit emotionally manipulative in hindsight, which, again, I suppose was to help convey a message but if an author is setting out to manipulate my emotions, I'd like it to be a little less obvious by not killing off what are effectively mooks in the end.
Overall, a very powerful novel, but not necessarily one I'd re-visit.
Next review: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Showing posts with label all quiet on the western front. Show all posts
Showing posts with label all quiet on the western front. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 July 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 12
Well guys, final chapter of the book. Only the narrator and Tjaden left now. And it's only two pages long. I'm presuming this means that the ending will be fairly quick and painless, which I hope will be the same case with the format. I think I might fiddle around with the layout to celebrate as well, so hopefully you'll come back, see my overall review and a shiny new layout to go with it. Last chapter was basically more death than the rest of the book put together.
So the majority of this chapter is talking about the rumours of an armistice and an end to the war. The basic idea seems to be that they as a group won't be able to handle the idea that the end of the war isn't happening. There's a lot of negativity, mainly about whether people like the narrator will be able to handle life without war, as it is what they have essentially spent their first years as adults doing. But then there's also a lot of hope there, with the narrator hoping to regain some of the love that he used to regard his home with, the hope that the person he was is still in there somewhere, which I really like.
Except that it's all for nothing, as he's just died. Well, that whole paragraph that I wrote there has been made completely and utterly futile. Oh well, it says that he didn't suffer, which I suppose is nice. I'm a bit annoyed that it was quite so abrupt, but I suppose that's to be expected, seeing as it wasn't deemed important in-story either.
So yeah, there'll be a new review coming up some time later today and hopefully a new layout to reflect the change in format.
Signing off,
Nisa.
So the majority of this chapter is talking about the rumours of an armistice and an end to the war. The basic idea seems to be that they as a group won't be able to handle the idea that the end of the war isn't happening. There's a lot of negativity, mainly about whether people like the narrator will be able to handle life without war, as it is what they have essentially spent their first years as adults doing. But then there's also a lot of hope there, with the narrator hoping to regain some of the love that he used to regard his home with, the hope that the person he was is still in there somewhere, which I really like.
Except that it's all for nothing, as he's just died. Well, that whole paragraph that I wrote there has been made completely and utterly futile. Oh well, it says that he didn't suffer, which I suppose is nice. I'm a bit annoyed that it was quite so abrupt, but I suppose that's to be expected, seeing as it wasn't deemed important in-story either.
So yeah, there'll be a new review coming up some time later today and hopefully a new layout to reflect the change in format.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Friday, 8 July 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 11
Hi guys, sorry for the huge delay between posts. For most of that time I actually have a legitimate excuse (consisting of the book being tidied away where I couldn't find it) which is odd; from about the beginning of the month it's basically been procrastination, which isn't so odd unfortunately. In any case, this will be my penultimate post in the old chapter-by-chapter format, and to be honest I'm really not sad to see it go. Last chapter we had our narrator and Kropp go into the hospital, ending with Kropp minus a limb and the narrator back to the front, seeing as you can't kill the narrator with two chapters still to go.
And thus we start this chapter with everyone essentially worn down to the basest of human instincts. Tjaden has taken to wolfing down his meals when he knows there's a raid on as he can't tell whether he'll be alive after it, which is fair enough; the other guys discuss why this might be a bad idea. It's rather depressing to realise that even their conversations only cover survival now, I mean I might have complained that all they seem to talk about is the war and reasons why it shouldn't have started etc, but at least it's better than "you probably don't want to eat that soup right now, it'll screw you over if you get a stomach wound". Personally I'm kind of hoping they die soon, because this is no way to live.
Turns out that one of the guys from their company has been court-martialled because he tried to go back home. I would make a comment, but I can't think of anything suitable.
Another guy has died trying to rescue/mercy kill a wounded messenger dog. The misery is unrelenting.
Müller's died too, from a stomach wound. Again, some unrelenting misery for the reader's discretion, like thousands of unprepared new recruits dying because they haven't been trained properly.
Two more have died protecting the company from the enemy's flamethrower, one of them being the company commander.
The months drag on and rumours of peace start to surface, but they still have to go out to the front, despite the fact that they know they're losing the war.
And now Kat's been wounded. Not as bad as it could have been, but still. Never mind, he got some shrapnel in the head while he was being taken to the dressing station. So now Kat's dead.
This chapter has pretty much been death, death and just a touch more death. It is, as I mentioned before, unrelentingly miserable, but at the same time almost absurd by the time the chapter ends. It just seems a bit too much.
Signing off,
Nisa.
And thus we start this chapter with everyone essentially worn down to the basest of human instincts. Tjaden has taken to wolfing down his meals when he knows there's a raid on as he can't tell whether he'll be alive after it, which is fair enough; the other guys discuss why this might be a bad idea. It's rather depressing to realise that even their conversations only cover survival now, I mean I might have complained that all they seem to talk about is the war and reasons why it shouldn't have started etc, but at least it's better than "you probably don't want to eat that soup right now, it'll screw you over if you get a stomach wound". Personally I'm kind of hoping they die soon, because this is no way to live.
Turns out that one of the guys from their company has been court-martialled because he tried to go back home. I would make a comment, but I can't think of anything suitable.
Another guy has died trying to rescue/mercy kill a wounded messenger dog. The misery is unrelenting.
Müller's died too, from a stomach wound. Again, some unrelenting misery for the reader's discretion, like thousands of unprepared new recruits dying because they haven't been trained properly.
Two more have died protecting the company from the enemy's flamethrower, one of them being the company commander.
The months drag on and rumours of peace start to surface, but they still have to go out to the front, despite the fact that they know they're losing the war.
And now Kat's been wounded. Not as bad as it could have been, but still. Never mind, he got some shrapnel in the head while he was being taken to the dressing station. So now Kat's dead.
This chapter has pretty much been death, death and just a touch more death. It is, as I mentioned before, unrelentingly miserable, but at the same time almost absurd by the time the chapter ends. It just seems a bit too much.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Sunday, 19 June 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 10
After a weekend away and beginning the first of the books that I need to read for my second year of uni, I feel sufficiently refreshed and will get back to reading this next chapter with more enthusiasm, shall we say.
So the chapter starts with the main group deployed to an evacuated village, where they have to defend the supply dump, which hasn't been emptied yet. So what's the first thing that they do upon finding a place suitable as a dugout? Loot the place, of course. To be fair, it's probably what I would do too, although they sound as if they're looting much more practical things than I would pick up (you're allowed three guesses as to what, but I sincerely doubt you'll need three). They end up with decent bedding and food (including a couple of piglets, which were unfortunately quick to be slaughtered), so that's good at least. What's not good is that when they use someone's kitchen to cook all this, the opposing side spots the smoke and starts to shell them. They carry on cooking. Wow. I'm not quite sure whether I'm impressed at their ability to keep calm under pressure or absolutely flabbergasted at their stubbornness. They all manage to get to the dugout, food in hand, so I suppose it's okay. Not sure I wanted that detail about their repeated need to empty their bowels during the night, but I'm kind of used to it now. In any case, they live like kings (considering the circumstances) until they're ordered to withdraw.
A few days later they're sent to oversee the evacuation of a village. They think that they won't be bombed at that moment, seeing as the French are unlikely to bomb a village full of their countrymen, but they'd be wrong. Our narrator and Kropp end up hurtling themselves over a hedge into a pond in order to find shelter. They eventually find a medic cart, where both of them turn out to be wounded, Kropp potentially seriously so. All in all a pretty disastrous deployment.
So it turns out that they aren't seriously wounded, just wounded enough to be sent back home. The paragraph is mainly dedicated to the surgeon poking about in our narrator's wound.
So they're waiting for the train to pick them up and take them home. It's raining and the station has no roof, so they're pretty miserable, for good reason. By the time they actually get on the train, our narrator has an odd moment of inability to face home life again when he hesitates to get the sheets dirty on the hospital train beds. A bit of an odd moment, but it's not too out of place.
Later on, during the night, our narrator takes a tumble when he gets out of bed to try find the toilet. Things just haven't gone right since they left that deployment at the beginning of the chapter. Things could be a lot worse though. We're then treated to how they deal with bladder and bowel issues without leaving their beds. Lovely. That and there's an odd bit at the end of the paragraph where it's mentioned that the train stops to drop off the dead. Not sure why, but it's there nonetheless.
The next paragraph has Kropp get feverish, so our narrator fakes a fever in order to be taken off the train at the same stop with him. A rather sweet sentiment really.
They're being treated at a Catholic infirmary, where the care is apparently very good, but none of them can get to sleep because the sisters insist on praying for their salvation very loudly with the door open specifically so that they can benefit from the prayers. I can see that getting very taxing very quickly. The soldiers agree with me and force the sisters to close the door. Hooray for sickness-based obstinacy.
The hospital inspector tries to tell them off for their chosen method of making the sisters close the door (bottle throwing in this instance), but one of the other patients takes the blame for it, seeing as he sustained a head wound meaning that they think he's more likely to not be in his right mind. Hooray for easily flouted escape clauses too.
Considering that Catholic infirmaries are supposed to be very good conditions, a nurse letting a man haemorrhage because she couldn't be bothered to answer their ringing after she's had a bad night doesn't sound all that good a condition to be in really.
There's a little bit of info about the nurses, most of which seem to be firm and experienced, but cheerless. We also hear about the man who was haemorrhaging last paragraph. He's been taken to the Dead Man's Room. I'm sure that nun/nurse will be getting a stern talking to regarding that.
Another depressing paragraph where the guy with the head injury is taken to the Dead Man's Room.
We hear about a doctor who's experimenting on people with flat feet, to see if he can get them to be normal. Considering that he's been trying since the start of the war, it doesn't seem to be working.
Kropp's had to have his leg amputated at the upper thigh. His immediate reaction is to shoot himself the first chance he gets, which is a bit alarming really. We're introduced to a new patient, a blinded musician who tries to kill himself by stabbing himself in the chest with a fork (inventive, but not very successful). So far, so very depressing. But the guy with the head wound is back from the Dead Man's Room, which is nice.
Our narrator is eventually given a pair of crutches to use, which he tends to use out in the corridor, for Kropp's sake I would imagine. He ends up exploring the hospital, seeing just how many places humans can be wounded. It's all rather grisly, so I think I'll leave it at that.
We're introduced to another patient, Lewandowski, whose wife comes to visit after saving and scrimping together enough money for the train journey down there. They haven't seen each other for two years, so the other patients, our narrator and Kropp included band together and cover up what I assume is the noise of Lewandowski and his wife having sex. Not bad really.
The final paragraph basically sums up how they've both recovered. Our narrator finishes physiotherapy and gets some injury leave, which is apparently even worse than the normal leave he had earlier. Kropp's stump has pretty much healed up completely, he's being fitted for an artificial leg and he seems a bit less inclined to killing himself. But he's still being left alone, which I don't think is a good sign.
After last chapter, I wasn't really expecting much. While this chapter was still a bit jumpy regarding time and plot, but it all meshed together better than it did last time. Much nicer to read.
Signing off,
Nisa.
So the chapter starts with the main group deployed to an evacuated village, where they have to defend the supply dump, which hasn't been emptied yet. So what's the first thing that they do upon finding a place suitable as a dugout? Loot the place, of course. To be fair, it's probably what I would do too, although they sound as if they're looting much more practical things than I would pick up (you're allowed three guesses as to what, but I sincerely doubt you'll need three). They end up with decent bedding and food (including a couple of piglets, which were unfortunately quick to be slaughtered), so that's good at least. What's not good is that when they use someone's kitchen to cook all this, the opposing side spots the smoke and starts to shell them. They carry on cooking. Wow. I'm not quite sure whether I'm impressed at their ability to keep calm under pressure or absolutely flabbergasted at their stubbornness. They all manage to get to the dugout, food in hand, so I suppose it's okay. Not sure I wanted that detail about their repeated need to empty their bowels during the night, but I'm kind of used to it now. In any case, they live like kings (considering the circumstances) until they're ordered to withdraw.
A few days later they're sent to oversee the evacuation of a village. They think that they won't be bombed at that moment, seeing as the French are unlikely to bomb a village full of their countrymen, but they'd be wrong. Our narrator and Kropp end up hurtling themselves over a hedge into a pond in order to find shelter. They eventually find a medic cart, where both of them turn out to be wounded, Kropp potentially seriously so. All in all a pretty disastrous deployment.
So it turns out that they aren't seriously wounded, just wounded enough to be sent back home. The paragraph is mainly dedicated to the surgeon poking about in our narrator's wound.
So they're waiting for the train to pick them up and take them home. It's raining and the station has no roof, so they're pretty miserable, for good reason. By the time they actually get on the train, our narrator has an odd moment of inability to face home life again when he hesitates to get the sheets dirty on the hospital train beds. A bit of an odd moment, but it's not too out of place.
Later on, during the night, our narrator takes a tumble when he gets out of bed to try find the toilet. Things just haven't gone right since they left that deployment at the beginning of the chapter. Things could be a lot worse though. We're then treated to how they deal with bladder and bowel issues without leaving their beds. Lovely. That and there's an odd bit at the end of the paragraph where it's mentioned that the train stops to drop off the dead. Not sure why, but it's there nonetheless.
The next paragraph has Kropp get feverish, so our narrator fakes a fever in order to be taken off the train at the same stop with him. A rather sweet sentiment really.
They're being treated at a Catholic infirmary, where the care is apparently very good, but none of them can get to sleep because the sisters insist on praying for their salvation very loudly with the door open specifically so that they can benefit from the prayers. I can see that getting very taxing very quickly. The soldiers agree with me and force the sisters to close the door. Hooray for sickness-based obstinacy.
The hospital inspector tries to tell them off for their chosen method of making the sisters close the door (bottle throwing in this instance), but one of the other patients takes the blame for it, seeing as he sustained a head wound meaning that they think he's more likely to not be in his right mind. Hooray for easily flouted escape clauses too.
Considering that Catholic infirmaries are supposed to be very good conditions, a nurse letting a man haemorrhage because she couldn't be bothered to answer their ringing after she's had a bad night doesn't sound all that good a condition to be in really.
There's a little bit of info about the nurses, most of which seem to be firm and experienced, but cheerless. We also hear about the man who was haemorrhaging last paragraph. He's been taken to the Dead Man's Room. I'm sure that nun/nurse will be getting a stern talking to regarding that.
Another depressing paragraph where the guy with the head injury is taken to the Dead Man's Room.
We hear about a doctor who's experimenting on people with flat feet, to see if he can get them to be normal. Considering that he's been trying since the start of the war, it doesn't seem to be working.
Kropp's had to have his leg amputated at the upper thigh. His immediate reaction is to shoot himself the first chance he gets, which is a bit alarming really. We're introduced to a new patient, a blinded musician who tries to kill himself by stabbing himself in the chest with a fork (inventive, but not very successful). So far, so very depressing. But the guy with the head wound is back from the Dead Man's Room, which is nice.
Our narrator is eventually given a pair of crutches to use, which he tends to use out in the corridor, for Kropp's sake I would imagine. He ends up exploring the hospital, seeing just how many places humans can be wounded. It's all rather grisly, so I think I'll leave it at that.
We're introduced to another patient, Lewandowski, whose wife comes to visit after saving and scrimping together enough money for the train journey down there. They haven't seen each other for two years, so the other patients, our narrator and Kropp included band together and cover up what I assume is the noise of Lewandowski and his wife having sex. Not bad really.
The final paragraph basically sums up how they've both recovered. Our narrator finishes physiotherapy and gets some injury leave, which is apparently even worse than the normal leave he had earlier. Kropp's stump has pretty much healed up completely, he's being fitted for an artificial leg and he seems a bit less inclined to killing himself. But he's still being left alone, which I don't think is a good sign.
After last chapter, I wasn't really expecting much. While this chapter was still a bit jumpy regarding time and plot, but it all meshed together better than it did last time. Much nicer to read.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 9
Hey guys, back again. On to chapter 9 now. I'll admit, at the moment reading this doesn't feel like an especially good prospect; this is nothing to do with the writing, it's just that the trend of the chapters recently has been for a soul-crushingly depressing atmosphere which I could do without. But I haven't read a chapter in a while and I do want to know what happens to him, so on I go.
So we are finally reunited with the rest of the guys, after finding out that they're now a flying division: a division that travels to wherever the fighting is worst/heaviest. Wonderful news. Although Kropp seems to have heard an entirely different rumour, that they're being sent to Russia, where the fighting is pretty much over. Personally? My money is on the flying division bit and Russia being a seriously unlikely prospect.
I almost thought for a minute I'd have to take that last sentence back. They all get new gear and uniforms etc, and go through drill practice almost obsessively, making our narrator wonder why they'd need all this for Russia. Turns out that the Kaiser is coming to inspect them instead. It all seems rather anti-climactic in the end, which is understandable considering that the Kaiser at the time was far from physically imposing. From talking about the Kaiser, they begin to ponder the question of whether the war would have started if the Kaiser had said no to it. Followed by a discussion of the differences between a nation and a homeland, which would be more interesting if it weren't so brief and more than just a place for "we don't need to be here" to be brought up. After all that they have to go get their old gear back again.
There's an odd scene next where they see the aftermath of a bombing raid on the way back to the front. Pretty much the entire scene is looking at the carnage, specifically at how the bodies are blown out of their clothes, and hoping they don't end up the same way. I don't see why it's there. It's probably there to show how brutal the war is, but then Remarque has already demonstrated that in much better and subtler ways, so this just seems to come out of nowhere.
The next scene is our narrator volunteering himself for a patrol to see how many of the enemy positions are manned. This is an interesting one, as there doesn't seem to be much danger around him (relatively speaking), but he's having what looks to be a pretty bad panic attack. I'm surprised just how much he could, in a sense, get used to the situation surrounding his two or so weeks away. His panic only subsides when he hears his friends' voices back in the trenches, which is another interesting point. Just how far does camaraderie go until it becomes an emotional crutch? Is that a healthy state of mind, even if it's helpful in situations like that?
So he continues forward, trying to make contact with the rest of the patrol, but gets lost. This isn't going particularly successfully, in all honesty. He ends up having to play dead in No Man's Land while a French offensive is going on. So all in all a spectacularly bad way to begin his work back on the front line, all things considered.
And he's still stuck out there at this point in the narrative, with enemy gunfire too low to the ground for him to get back to his own trenches and a dying man in there with him. It's a horrible scene to read, simply because he's waiting for the Germans to start a counter-attack so that he can go back to see his mates, but he realises that his mates probably think he's already died.
That man stuck in the shell crater with him is taking longer to die than I imagined. I'm assuming that this guy is a French soldier, which is why I'm kinda confused as to why our narrator is trying to help heal his wounds. I mean, I can understand sympathising with the people on the other side and such, but considering that this is a battlefield, it seemed an odd place for him to suddenly develop a desire to help his fellow man.
The soldier finally dies. Somehow it's both affecting and nauseating at the same time: you pity the man and all the wasted years he has, but then Bäumer imagining all these aspects of the dead man's life, like a wife he writes to, just seems too close somehow. Bäumer does seem to be going quite mad though.
Definitely not a healthy mindset now. He's utterly obsessed with the family of the man he's just killed, going through the corpse's wallet so that he'll know who he's killed. It's more scary than sad now, which I'm not sure was the intention, to be honest.
He now makes it back to the trench, where he's welcomed back with a fair amount of relief. Considering how scarily obsessive he was about the guy he killed as well, he forgets him pretty quickly after the others assure him that everything's okay. Which is almost as creepy as the obsession in the first place.
I'm not sure what I think of this chapter. It didn't seem to gel quite as well as the others, if I'm honest. Still, not bad overall.
Signing off,
Nisa.
So we are finally reunited with the rest of the guys, after finding out that they're now a flying division: a division that travels to wherever the fighting is worst/heaviest. Wonderful news. Although Kropp seems to have heard an entirely different rumour, that they're being sent to Russia, where the fighting is pretty much over. Personally? My money is on the flying division bit and Russia being a seriously unlikely prospect.
I almost thought for a minute I'd have to take that last sentence back. They all get new gear and uniforms etc, and go through drill practice almost obsessively, making our narrator wonder why they'd need all this for Russia. Turns out that the Kaiser is coming to inspect them instead. It all seems rather anti-climactic in the end, which is understandable considering that the Kaiser at the time was far from physically imposing. From talking about the Kaiser, they begin to ponder the question of whether the war would have started if the Kaiser had said no to it. Followed by a discussion of the differences between a nation and a homeland, which would be more interesting if it weren't so brief and more than just a place for "we don't need to be here" to be brought up. After all that they have to go get their old gear back again.
There's an odd scene next where they see the aftermath of a bombing raid on the way back to the front. Pretty much the entire scene is looking at the carnage, specifically at how the bodies are blown out of their clothes, and hoping they don't end up the same way. I don't see why it's there. It's probably there to show how brutal the war is, but then Remarque has already demonstrated that in much better and subtler ways, so this just seems to come out of nowhere.
The next scene is our narrator volunteering himself for a patrol to see how many of the enemy positions are manned. This is an interesting one, as there doesn't seem to be much danger around him (relatively speaking), but he's having what looks to be a pretty bad panic attack. I'm surprised just how much he could, in a sense, get used to the situation surrounding his two or so weeks away. His panic only subsides when he hears his friends' voices back in the trenches, which is another interesting point. Just how far does camaraderie go until it becomes an emotional crutch? Is that a healthy state of mind, even if it's helpful in situations like that?
So he continues forward, trying to make contact with the rest of the patrol, but gets lost. This isn't going particularly successfully, in all honesty. He ends up having to play dead in No Man's Land while a French offensive is going on. So all in all a spectacularly bad way to begin his work back on the front line, all things considered.
And he's still stuck out there at this point in the narrative, with enemy gunfire too low to the ground for him to get back to his own trenches and a dying man in there with him. It's a horrible scene to read, simply because he's waiting for the Germans to start a counter-attack so that he can go back to see his mates, but he realises that his mates probably think he's already died.
That man stuck in the shell crater with him is taking longer to die than I imagined. I'm assuming that this guy is a French soldier, which is why I'm kinda confused as to why our narrator is trying to help heal his wounds. I mean, I can understand sympathising with the people on the other side and such, but considering that this is a battlefield, it seemed an odd place for him to suddenly develop a desire to help his fellow man.
The soldier finally dies. Somehow it's both affecting and nauseating at the same time: you pity the man and all the wasted years he has, but then Bäumer imagining all these aspects of the dead man's life, like a wife he writes to, just seems too close somehow. Bäumer does seem to be going quite mad though.
Definitely not a healthy mindset now. He's utterly obsessed with the family of the man he's just killed, going through the corpse's wallet so that he'll know who he's killed. It's more scary than sad now, which I'm not sure was the intention, to be honest.
He now makes it back to the trench, where he's welcomed back with a fair amount of relief. Considering how scarily obsessive he was about the guy he killed as well, he forgets him pretty quickly after the others assure him that everything's okay. Which is almost as creepy as the obsession in the first place.
I'm not sure what I think of this chapter. It didn't seem to gel quite as well as the others, if I'm honest. Still, not bad overall.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Monday, 13 June 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 8
Hey guys, I'm back again after a long break. I would say that it was spent settling back in at home, having moved back after uni finished, but that would be a lie. I've been procrastinating like nobody's business, if I'm being totally honest. During that procrastination, I was thinking a little about this blog and I've decided that All Quiet on the Western Front will be the last book I review chapter by chapter; much as I've found the form interesting at times and much as I like looking at the book in-depth, reviewing chapter by chapter is beginning to grate now. Normally I get through quite a few books a year (many of them re-reads, which I aim to change), but this form of reviewing feels deliberately slowed-down; I mean, we're halfway through the year and I'm still on my third book. At six books a year, I probably won't get through my current TBR list for three-four years, so if I end up adding to it (which is almost inevitable really) then it'll never really stop. So after All Quiet on the Western Front, I'm just going to review books as a whole; I will try to make those reviews as detailed as possible though. So anyway, for those who have forgotten where I left off (myself included), Bäumer had gone back home on leave and thoroughly regretted it.
The chapter starts with Bäumer during training after his leave has finished, and you can definitely notice a change in his behaviour now. Before now there's been a big focus on people and the effect of war and the military on him and his behaviour, but now there's a sudden shift to focusing on nature. It's not necessarily a bad thing though, as it means there are sections like this where the detail is simply wonderful:
He ends up doing guard duty at the fence and ends up musing that if the war were ended that day, the Russian prisoners on the other side of the fence would or could in all likelihood be men that he would befriend. I don't know, that idea that governments control our lives in ways like that is kinda scary. In the end, we don't have much say in what they do or don't do, have we? In any case, he manages to speak to a few of them, including a violinist who used to play in the Berlin orchestra. A prime example of who we should and shouldn't like during war, I suppose.
The last Sunday before he goes back to the front, Bäumer is visited by his father and sister. They end up talking about his mother's illness. The doctors say that she's got cancer, but they hope that she'll get better by having an operation to remove the tumour. That is if the family can actually afford it, which is highly doubtful. Bäumer doesn't seem to catch a break, does he?
So that's the end of chapter 8 and it's thoroughly depressing. We seem to be on a downward spiral of bleakness now.
Signing off,
Nisa.
The chapter starts with Bäumer during training after his leave has finished, and you can definitely notice a change in his behaviour now. Before now there's been a big focus on people and the effect of war and the military on him and his behaviour, but now there's a sudden shift to focusing on nature. It's not necessarily a bad thing though, as it means there are sections like this where the detail is simply wonderful:
"Best of all are the woodlands, with the birch trees at the edges. They are constantly changing colour. The trunks may be shining and dazzlingly white, with the pastel green of their leaves waving between them, silky and airy; and then in the next moment it all changes to an opalescent blue, with silver coming in from the edges and dabbing the green away; but then all at once it can deepen to almost black at one point, when a cloud crosses the sun."That's probably the loveliest image I'm going to get from this book, and while it is nice to get sections like these, the sudden switch does seem a little odd. In any case, in conjunction with the fascination with nature, he expresses a wish to not really get closer than necessary to anyone at the training camp. He then mentions a POW camp next-door to them, containing Russian soldiers. Somehow the prisoners get across the wire fence separating the two camps and try anything to get a little more to eat, considering that they only get fed enough to not starve; it's a pitiful image, with all these men going through the rubbish bins and trading off everything of value that they have just to eat.
He ends up doing guard duty at the fence and ends up musing that if the war were ended that day, the Russian prisoners on the other side of the fence would or could in all likelihood be men that he would befriend. I don't know, that idea that governments control our lives in ways like that is kinda scary. In the end, we don't have much say in what they do or don't do, have we? In any case, he manages to speak to a few of them, including a violinist who used to play in the Berlin orchestra. A prime example of who we should and shouldn't like during war, I suppose.
The last Sunday before he goes back to the front, Bäumer is visited by his father and sister. They end up talking about his mother's illness. The doctors say that she's got cancer, but they hope that she'll get better by having an operation to remove the tumour. That is if the family can actually afford it, which is highly doubtful. Bäumer doesn't seem to catch a break, does he?
So that's the end of chapter 8 and it's thoroughly depressing. We seem to be on a downward spiral of bleakness now.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 7
Finally back after my Expo weekend and subsequent recovery period. You wouldn't think two days at a convention would take it out of you so much. In any case, I'm mostly back to normal, just trying to sort out my sleeping pattern now, and now ready to continue my reviews. Last chapter seemed to be the "kill-'em-all" chapter and the halfway point.
So after being almost totally obliterated, the company is taken far behind the lines so that it can get some more recruits in there and thus actually qualify as a company. Himmelstoss made it out alive, which is a surprise. He's actually nice now, which is an even bigger surprise. A side effect of him being nice is that our main group (apart from Haie, who's dying in some army hospital right about now) is getting well-fed and rested. It seems that while they're behind the front line, they retreat into jokey personas so that they don't have to deal with all the horrors of the front. Makes sense that they can't really dwell on that sort of stuff out there, otherwise they're at risk of dying, but I can imagine that come peace-time, it's all going to come out and it will not be pretty.
This next paragraph seems to be pretty much a longer, more poetic version of what I discussed just now. I don't see much point re-hashing that right now, so I'll move along.
There's an odd scene next where the guys find a poster of a pretty girl that pretty much transfixes them. Granted, I can understand them being fascinated by her picture, seeing as it's been a while since they've seen any women. I can understand that. But preening themselves for a poster seems a little bit on the eerie side; it seems like the poster is taking on too much significance somehow, like if a guy were to get in his finest tux so that he can ogle a page 3 girl. I don't know, it just doesn't sit right somehow.
The next scene sees them organise a rendezvous with some French girls in exchange for food. I suddenly get the feeling that this may well be the sex/women oriented chapter. So they wait until dark to swim across, where the girls are greeted with the sight of 3 men, all naked as the day they were born except for boots. They laugh, obviously (who wouldn't?). The girls eat and talk to them in French, which they don't understand. My understanding of French has declined somewhat over the years, but I can say that it's less friendly and more pitying than they seem to think. The sex (or what little the reader is shown of it) is more melancholy than anything, more an escape from the war than anything else. It's rather sad that an act that can hold so much meaning for the people involved can also degenerate to an escape route. I mean, it doesn't hold any meaning that way; you forget for a short while, but in the end it all fades away again.
They eventually go back to camp, where they pass Tjaden racing along in the nude to see if he can get in on the fun. An amusing image, but not quite enough here.
The next morning, Bäumer is told that he's being given leave for two weeks, and that he doesn't have to report back to the front afterwards; instead he'll be at a camp in the moors for training. He spends his last day with his friends in the canteen, drinking beer and smoking. What do you reckon the likelihood is that by the time he gets back from this training course thing, there will have been a load of them killed off?
We skip a great deal of the travelling until he gets close to his home town. It does sound very pretty, with rolling fields and the like. Maybe a bit too idyllic, but it works in the circumstances. In any case, Bäumer can't seem to convince himself that he's actually home, and it's made pretty awkward by his mother asking whether it's bad at the front. That and his mother may have cancer. Things just keep getting better, huh?
He goes to the district's military HQ to report and meets with a thoroughly unpleasant major on the way back. Not quite sure why this scene is here, but oh well. In any case, he ditches the uniform as quickly as he can once he gets back home again.
He ends up going to the local pub with his father, and oh dear. It really couldn't get much more awkward. While his mother is just asking what the conditions are like so that she can assuage her doubts, his father wants to know the nitty gritty. Or at least he thinks he does, going under the assumption that everything's a grand old lark out there. It's a similar situation with his teachers, who think that winning the war will just be a simple matter of winning in a certain area of the battlefield. Frankly, it's irritating, but he can't really tell them that they're talking rubbish because they're being so supportive.
There's a section where Bäumer talks about how he wishes he could connect with the people in his home town still or that they just stop talking and just appreciate what they've got for once. It's quite sad but really frustrating at the same time, just thinking about the sheer idiocy that the human race displays sometimes.
Seems he can't even connect to the person he used to be anymore either. There's a scene where he just sits in his old room, trying to recapture the youthful enthusiasm he had before he joined the war. He tries reading through all his books, to try and convince himself that he'll be okay once the war is over, but nothing reaches him; the books that he spent so much time collecting mean absolutely nothing to him. I don't know why, but I think that's got to be the scariest thing of all the stuff that has happened in this chapter. The idea that you could come back from somewhere and not even recognise what inspired or defined your younger self is a horrific prospect, for me anyway.
He ends up visiting an old friend, Mittelstaedt, who was presumably injured enough to be sent back home and put in charge of the home guard. Which their old teacher, Kantorek, is part of. The revenge on Kantorek is pretty good too, giving him a hopelessly mismatched and ill-fitting uniform amongst other things. I would feel sorry for this guy, but he has effectively killed a large chunk of his old students, so I think he rather deserves it. Plus it's a great image.
Back at home it's getting progressively more awkward, as his mother is getting more depressed the closer he gets to going back to war.
Almost as awkward as visiting Kemmerich's mother. You know, the guy who died in chapter 2? Yeah, that was never going to go well. Quite why she wanted to know how he died, I have no idea. I mean, if I had a child and s/he died, I'd want to know as little as possible simply for my peace of mind. But maybe that's just me. Should the circumstance ever come up, I may well act like Kemmerich's mother too, against my better judgement. Who knows?
The final scene this chapter is him saying goodbye to his mother. It's a nightmare, just one of those things that cannot go well, like visiting Kemmerich's mother. To cut a long scene short, he tries to dumb down the dangers of the front again, all the while having a surprisingly flowery inner monologue.
After all that, you can understand why he would wish he'd never come home on leave. Yeah, overall a pretty depressing experience, with a few comedic moments which don't quite alleviate the gloom as well as one would hope.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Friday, 27 May 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 6
Wow, already at the halfway point. Or it will be by the time I finish this chapter. To be frank, I wasn't expecting it to be quite so episodic. I mean, so far it could be seen more as a collection of a short stories that happened to feature the same cast. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just a bit surprised. Anyway, last chapter was pretty much a stop-gap chapter, with a bit of mocking at Himmelstoss' expense and a stolen goose.
So we start off a couple days before they go on an offensive, and things aren't looking good. From what they can gather from the sounds from the other trenches, the British and French have increased their artillery, which is never helpful, plus their superiors haven't exactly made morale any easier to keep up by piling up hundreds of new coffins. Subtle guys. To make things worse, shoddy upkeep on their own artillery means that they accidentally get shelled by their own side. I don't see this going well somehow.
There's a short discussion/monologue about chance and how you can never tell when you're going to die. It's all rather depressing, really.
We then get a section where the soldiers try to protect their bread rations from the rats, which sound absolutely repulsive in all honesty. They end up gathering scraps of bread together, then when the rats come to eat them, beat the little beasts to death with shovels. I really hope that imagery is gone soon so my stomach can settle.
The next day, they're all given big chunks of Edam cheese and issued liquor, which is presumably their superiors' idea of a decent last meal should anything go wrong. Again, hardly comforting. They check their weapons and prepare themselves for the possibility of a gas attack. Despite all this, it's quiet for a few days, all except for the constant rumbling of vehicles bringing more artillery to the British and French line. Ominous. They eventually hear that the British and French will be using tanks, aircraft and, most ominously (if you watched that episode of Time Team, you will know exactly what I'm talking about), flame-throwers. In the middle of the night, the shelling starts and all they can really do is stay in the dugout and hope for the best. It extends well into the day, pulverising their trench and preventing them from getting more food down there. So yeah, they might still be alive, but the situation is still pretty grim.
The night is difficult, especially when the rats invade. I had been hoping that we wouldn't see the rats again. Then the recruits start to go crazy and try to escape. I was waiting for that to happen, it seems to be a staple of war fiction. They get some more bread, but that's not much help for the recruit that managed to escape the dugout, then get blown up. So overall, a pretty horrific experience for all.
The shells eventually stop, but that was just the beginning of the offensive, as now they have to defend against the other side raiding their trenches. The French are now advancing, but even they're taking casualties, such as this gruesome bit:
They get back to the reserve trenches and eventually begin to fight their way back, so that they actually manage to get back to the front trenches again. They actually get to the enemy trenches, which was unexpected. That offensive didn't work too well for the French really. There's some fighting in the French trench, but by this point, the fighting has pretty much stopped. Which is why there's an odd change of subject where they still the French food supplies. Fair enough.
So now we're in the post-offensive bit, and for whatever reason this means our narrator has flashbacks to his home and youth. They're all characterised by absolute quiet, devoid of the sounds of the front line, which must be very odd. It's quite a melancholy passage, as there's an understanding that even if he goes back to the places in his memory, it won't be the same and he won't know how to handle it.
There's a short paragraph that summarises the night that goes by while our narrator is on look-out, which sounds generally unpleasant, but otherwise not too bad.
This pattern of attacks and counter-attacks goes on for a few days, with them occasionally going out to try and recover their wounded from no-man's land. There seems to be one guy who they can hear, but because he's on his front they can't pinpoint where he is, so he stays out there for days, just getting weaker and weaker. It's even worse than the French guy I quoted about before.
As it gets quieter, they start collecting parachute silk and copper from the used French shells, for no real reason that either I or the narrator can think of. Haie tries to give a reason for collecting the copper bands, which is to send home to replace his girlfriend's garter. Not a bad reason in all. The parachute silk seems to be of more actual value. There's still some shelling, but nowhere near the same amount. Although, that said, the recon planes still make things difficult, causing another batch of casualties.
Another set of attacks and counter-attacks start up and there are more new recruits being sent straight to the front. But they don't really seem to be doing anything other than getting in the way to be quite honest. It's rather sad, but the overall feeling I get from this is frustration at the stupid tactics the superior officers seem to be using constantly. It's especially irritating to know that a change of tactics could have prevented all the casualties suffered in the First World War. Quite why I'm raging at people who aren't even alive anymore, I'm not entirely sure. Oh well.
There's now a short section where Himmelstoss acts like a coward and tries to avoid the fight while there are all these young recruits dying, and is beaten up to get him outside again. I'm not sure which feeling is greater: disdain for this pompous idiot, or satisfaction that he's been beaten up. Probably disdain.
There's another section of fighting and more men dying. Mostly recruits still, even though the older hands try to show them the ropes a bit. Haie is carried off with a big enough wound in his back that you can see lung through it; my medical knowledge is pretty patchy, but I think he's not making it back alive. And after it's all done? They lost about 200 yards. That's a pathetic amount of ground compared to the amount of people they must have lost along the way.
They're finally pulled back from the front and replaced with relief troops and things have not gone well. They went out with 150 men in their company and came back with 32. I can't imagine losing that many people in such a short amount of time. And it's where the chapter ends. How depressing.
Wow. That was an absolutely brutal chapter. I thought it wouldn't get much worse than the shelling scene from earlier, but was I ever wrong. Again, I can't imagine how they didn't just become a bunch of gibbering wrecks after all that.
Signing off,
Nisa.
So we start off a couple days before they go on an offensive, and things aren't looking good. From what they can gather from the sounds from the other trenches, the British and French have increased their artillery, which is never helpful, plus their superiors haven't exactly made morale any easier to keep up by piling up hundreds of new coffins. Subtle guys. To make things worse, shoddy upkeep on their own artillery means that they accidentally get shelled by their own side. I don't see this going well somehow.
There's a short discussion/monologue about chance and how you can never tell when you're going to die. It's all rather depressing, really.
We then get a section where the soldiers try to protect their bread rations from the rats, which sound absolutely repulsive in all honesty. They end up gathering scraps of bread together, then when the rats come to eat them, beat the little beasts to death with shovels. I really hope that imagery is gone soon so my stomach can settle.
The next day, they're all given big chunks of Edam cheese and issued liquor, which is presumably their superiors' idea of a decent last meal should anything go wrong. Again, hardly comforting. They check their weapons and prepare themselves for the possibility of a gas attack. Despite all this, it's quiet for a few days, all except for the constant rumbling of vehicles bringing more artillery to the British and French line. Ominous. They eventually hear that the British and French will be using tanks, aircraft and, most ominously (if you watched that episode of Time Team, you will know exactly what I'm talking about), flame-throwers. In the middle of the night, the shelling starts and all they can really do is stay in the dugout and hope for the best. It extends well into the day, pulverising their trench and preventing them from getting more food down there. So yeah, they might still be alive, but the situation is still pretty grim.
The night is difficult, especially when the rats invade. I had been hoping that we wouldn't see the rats again. Then the recruits start to go crazy and try to escape. I was waiting for that to happen, it seems to be a staple of war fiction. They get some more bread, but that's not much help for the recruit that managed to escape the dugout, then get blown up. So overall, a pretty horrific experience for all.
The shells eventually stop, but that was just the beginning of the offensive, as now they have to defend against the other side raiding their trenches. The French are now advancing, but even they're taking casualties, such as this gruesome bit:
"I see one of them run into a knife-rest, his face lifted upwards. His body slumps, and his hands stay caught, raised up as if he is praying. Then the body falls away completely and only the shot-off hands and the stumps of the arms are left hanging in the wire."No bloody wonder so many of them came back with no idea how to function in society. After seeing things like that I'm surprised they weren't all carted off to mental asylums. But at this point it seems that they've all fallen back on instinct and are fighting to survive. It'll hit them later. In any case, they abandon the front trenches, seeing as it's a lost cause.
They get back to the reserve trenches and eventually begin to fight their way back, so that they actually manage to get back to the front trenches again. They actually get to the enemy trenches, which was unexpected. That offensive didn't work too well for the French really. There's some fighting in the French trench, but by this point, the fighting has pretty much stopped. Which is why there's an odd change of subject where they still the French food supplies. Fair enough.
So now we're in the post-offensive bit, and for whatever reason this means our narrator has flashbacks to his home and youth. They're all characterised by absolute quiet, devoid of the sounds of the front line, which must be very odd. It's quite a melancholy passage, as there's an understanding that even if he goes back to the places in his memory, it won't be the same and he won't know how to handle it.
There's a short paragraph that summarises the night that goes by while our narrator is on look-out, which sounds generally unpleasant, but otherwise not too bad.
This pattern of attacks and counter-attacks goes on for a few days, with them occasionally going out to try and recover their wounded from no-man's land. There seems to be one guy who they can hear, but because he's on his front they can't pinpoint where he is, so he stays out there for days, just getting weaker and weaker. It's even worse than the French guy I quoted about before.
As it gets quieter, they start collecting parachute silk and copper from the used French shells, for no real reason that either I or the narrator can think of. Haie tries to give a reason for collecting the copper bands, which is to send home to replace his girlfriend's garter. Not a bad reason in all. The parachute silk seems to be of more actual value. There's still some shelling, but nowhere near the same amount. Although, that said, the recon planes still make things difficult, causing another batch of casualties.
Another set of attacks and counter-attacks start up and there are more new recruits being sent straight to the front. But they don't really seem to be doing anything other than getting in the way to be quite honest. It's rather sad, but the overall feeling I get from this is frustration at the stupid tactics the superior officers seem to be using constantly. It's especially irritating to know that a change of tactics could have prevented all the casualties suffered in the First World War. Quite why I'm raging at people who aren't even alive anymore, I'm not entirely sure. Oh well.
There's now a short section where Himmelstoss acts like a coward and tries to avoid the fight while there are all these young recruits dying, and is beaten up to get him outside again. I'm not sure which feeling is greater: disdain for this pompous idiot, or satisfaction that he's been beaten up. Probably disdain.
There's another section of fighting and more men dying. Mostly recruits still, even though the older hands try to show them the ropes a bit. Haie is carried off with a big enough wound in his back that you can see lung through it; my medical knowledge is pretty patchy, but I think he's not making it back alive. And after it's all done? They lost about 200 yards. That's a pathetic amount of ground compared to the amount of people they must have lost along the way.
They're finally pulled back from the front and replaced with relief troops and things have not gone well. They went out with 150 men in their company and came back with 32. I can't imagine losing that many people in such a short amount of time. And it's where the chapter ends. How depressing.
Wow. That was an absolutely brutal chapter. I thought it wouldn't get much worse than the shelling scene from earlier, but was I ever wrong. Again, I can't imagine how they didn't just become a bunch of gibbering wrecks after all that.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 5
Hi guys, finally back to do another chapter review. My exams have technically been over since Friday, but I just haven't been in the reviewing mood, what with fall-out from exam tiredness, registering for new courses next year and sorting out an interview for a job. But now I'm back, and I was wondering about what people thought about the little book discussion I did last entry. I mean, I enjoyed looking back at what affected my development as a reader, but thus far I haven't had any reaction to it, so I was wondering whether I should include more entries like that, or whether I should just stick to chapter reviews. Well, with that said and done, I just need to recap the last chapter, although considering that that was the reader's first experience of the front line, I don't think it needs all that much of a recap. To cut a long story, anything that could go wrong went wrong.
And we start this chapter talking about lice. Well, that was an odd change of pace. We go from shells exploding everywhere you look to throwing lice into a boot polish lid/makeshift frying-pan. Weird. Anyway, while they flash-fry lice, they're contemplating the fact that Himmelstoss, the one nobody liked from earlier, is actually at the front now. Again, this might just be evidence that I have a vicious mindset, but I'm looking forward to this.
But instead of elaborating on the Himmelstoss thing, we instead get a discussion about what they would do if peace were suddenly declared. The overall answer seems to be "find women and have some fun". Nice to know that they still appreciate those simple pleasures in life. And then oddly enough, the idea of continuing in the army come peace-time comes about. Now I realise that after the war there won't nearly be as much danger present, but I would have thought that staying in the army would be the last thing I'd consider doing. There are a few more answers considered, then Himmelstoss turns up. My god, I don't think this scene could be any more awkward or hostile if it possibly tried. Tjaden insults him, as he's been meaning to do for a while, and it's all very satisfying, but there is the possibility that Himmelstoss can get him in trouble for that. So it doesn't feel entirely satisfactory.
We go back to the previous discussion about what they'd do if peace were declared, and they consider going back to school. For all of about 5 seconds before they tot up how many are left from their class and decide that the teacher would never be able to control them anyway. Cue making fun of their old teacher. Then cue a rather depressing realisation that the war has essentially ruined the psyches of an entire generation of young men. Thanks guys, I was beginning to hope that this would be a comparatively happy chapter.
So, of course, Himmelstoss has kicked up a fuss and tries to find Tjaden to knock him down a couple notches. It doesn't go so well, with the company's lieutenant giving him a dressing down, while Tjaden and Kropp get periods of open arrest each. Considering that open arrest is essentially being locked in a room that's allowed visitors, it doesn't sound all that bad. They reckon that Himmelstoss will last 3 days. Please let there be a pool set up.
After roll call, Kat and Bäumer decide to go steal a goose that they noticed on the way to their job on the front last chapter. It doesn't go as well as they'd hoped, but they do get the goose, which is the important thing I suppose. They have an intimate moment of silence as they cook the goose in a hut with blacked out windows in the middle of the night. It's all very sweet and affectionate, if a little bit trippy at points. Granted, he is half asleep, but it's still a bit odd to read. They eventually get round to eating it and, having had their fill, even bring a bit back to give to Tjaden and Kropp in open arrest. And that's pretty much where it ends, with that little show of camaraderie.
This was one of those quieter chapters, where there are little hints and reminders about the war and the damage it's causing, but it's mostly focused on the quiet moments where the group is just relaxing together. I rather like these chapters, because from what I've seen of war films, there seems to be comparatively little of this slow build-up of character development and relationships growing, which I think works to their detriment. But yeah, I liked this chapter, if only for the goose section at the end.
Signing off,
Nisa.
And we start this chapter talking about lice. Well, that was an odd change of pace. We go from shells exploding everywhere you look to throwing lice into a boot polish lid/makeshift frying-pan. Weird. Anyway, while they flash-fry lice, they're contemplating the fact that Himmelstoss, the one nobody liked from earlier, is actually at the front now. Again, this might just be evidence that I have a vicious mindset, but I'm looking forward to this.
But instead of elaborating on the Himmelstoss thing, we instead get a discussion about what they would do if peace were suddenly declared. The overall answer seems to be "find women and have some fun". Nice to know that they still appreciate those simple pleasures in life. And then oddly enough, the idea of continuing in the army come peace-time comes about. Now I realise that after the war there won't nearly be as much danger present, but I would have thought that staying in the army would be the last thing I'd consider doing. There are a few more answers considered, then Himmelstoss turns up. My god, I don't think this scene could be any more awkward or hostile if it possibly tried. Tjaden insults him, as he's been meaning to do for a while, and it's all very satisfying, but there is the possibility that Himmelstoss can get him in trouble for that. So it doesn't feel entirely satisfactory.
We go back to the previous discussion about what they'd do if peace were declared, and they consider going back to school. For all of about 5 seconds before they tot up how many are left from their class and decide that the teacher would never be able to control them anyway. Cue making fun of their old teacher. Then cue a rather depressing realisation that the war has essentially ruined the psyches of an entire generation of young men. Thanks guys, I was beginning to hope that this would be a comparatively happy chapter.
So, of course, Himmelstoss has kicked up a fuss and tries to find Tjaden to knock him down a couple notches. It doesn't go so well, with the company's lieutenant giving him a dressing down, while Tjaden and Kropp get periods of open arrest each. Considering that open arrest is essentially being locked in a room that's allowed visitors, it doesn't sound all that bad. They reckon that Himmelstoss will last 3 days. Please let there be a pool set up.
After roll call, Kat and Bäumer decide to go steal a goose that they noticed on the way to their job on the front last chapter. It doesn't go as well as they'd hoped, but they do get the goose, which is the important thing I suppose. They have an intimate moment of silence as they cook the goose in a hut with blacked out windows in the middle of the night. It's all very sweet and affectionate, if a little bit trippy at points. Granted, he is half asleep, but it's still a bit odd to read. They eventually get round to eating it and, having had their fill, even bring a bit back to give to Tjaden and Kropp in open arrest. And that's pretty much where it ends, with that little show of camaraderie.
This was one of those quieter chapters, where there are little hints and reminders about the war and the damage it's causing, but it's mostly focused on the quiet moments where the group is just relaxing together. I rather like these chapters, because from what I've seen of war films, there seems to be comparatively little of this slow build-up of character development and relationships growing, which I think works to their detriment. But yeah, I liked this chapter, if only for the goose section at the end.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Monday, 16 May 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 4
Well, with 'The Heritage of Dante and the Renaissance' out of the way now, I only have one exam left. It's probably not a good thing to do, but I think I deserve a bit of a rest before I start preparing for my last exam. Hence why I'm here, with you lovely people, with All Quiet on the Western Front in my hands. So last chapter was surprisingly happy, considering the circumstances, thus the chances for it to all go downhill from here are probably fairly high.
Our fourth chapter starts with the group going up to the front on "wiring duty", whatever that means: much as I love retro technology and gadgets, I have no clue how most of them work. They keep up good spirits, shouting jokes to overtaking lorries and making plans to steal a goose, but you can tell that this isn't a pleasant job that they're about to do. Mainly because they don't mind being thrown off the truck they're on and ending up in hospital with a broken arm. The only bone I've ever broken is a toe, and that really bloody hurt, so it must be pretty damn unpleasant if they don't mind that happening. Although it may just be the fact that they're going to the front. Painful injury or threat of death? Yeah, that's pretty unsurprising now that I think about it. They get to the gun line, pretty much as far away from the actual action as the front line can get as far as I could tell from this, and things get noticeably more tense. It turns out that something big is likely to happen that night, as the British have started battery fire an hour earlier than normal. Is it just me, or does it seem really odd that the trenches were run on a timetable? Something along the line of "so long as we're just staying where we are, start shelling at 2200 hours sharp". I was expecting a bit more chaos somehow. In any case, there's a bit of a discussion about how being at the front immediately puts you on alert, but I think that's an obvious enough side-effect that I won't over-discuss it.
We now get a discussion about how earth is the most important part of life in the trenches. I'll admit, I was surprised at the importance it's given. When Bäumer talks about ducking down to avoid shell-fire, there's almost an intimacy with the earth, which I really wasn't expecting; it's like it's taken on both a guarding and consoling role for them. I mean, read through this bit and try to tell me that, despite the horrific circumstances, this is not beautiful:
The group gets to wherever they're doing their wiring duty, there's a little bit of description about various different things going on behind the trenches, a quick stop to pick up equipment and they're on their way. They're close to the trenches now, and the tension is rising. I almost don't want to go any further, because it's one of those scenes where you can just tell that something bad is going to happen.
So it turns out that I've not been thinking literally enough, and wiring duty is literally setting up lines of barbed wire. In any other circumstance, I would probably have some kind of sarcastic comment about this like "riveting stuff", but it just seems wrong here. They finish after a few hours, but there's still time until the truck comes back to retrieve them, so most of them settle down to try and get a nap, our narrator included. He wakes up just in time to crawl away from some shelling. Knew it. Only one shell lands in amongst the group, so they're safe for now, but Bäumer is still stuck with one of the new recruits huddling into his chest, which is rather sweet.
So the shelling stops and people are safe for now, but the group are now subjected to the haunting sound of wounded horses screaming. Much as I want to be really affected by this scene, I'm feeling only slightly sympathetic. I have no idea why: I like animals, I get affected by lives lost in wars and the graphic detail here is pretty shocking, but I'm just not all that sad about it. I guess because I was so anxious about the characters themselves dying or getting hurt, horses getting hurt doesn't have the same impact; if I'm honest, after worrying about the human characters, the horses are pretty much a relief in contrast. It's a horrible thing to say, and I know it's bringing up the issue of animals in warfare, but if Remarque wanted me to care so much, then he should probably have focused on them a bit more before they were all killed.
So they go back to where they're supposed to meet the trucks, when another round of shelling starts up, forcing them to hide in a military graveyard. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting that round. Bäumer gets knocked around a bit and ends up taking shelter in the grave he was hiding behind. I would say something about the sanctity of the dead, but it's extreme circumstances. He's then told by Katczinsky that there's now a gas attack to worry about too. Wonderful. Whoever came up with gas must have either been seriously unlucky or a total sadist. It's the most horrific thing I remember learning in History of Medicine, simply because of how bloody effective it is at killing you. So, while Bäumer's lying in the shell crater with Kat, Kropp and another guy, the barrage of explosive and gas shells is still going on, so staying in the crater is, unfortunately, their only option. Gas is heavy so it sinks into the craters, but they can't lie on higher ground because there's a chance they'll get hit by explosives; damned if they do, damned if they don't. To make things worse, the fourth guy gets his arm trapped when a shell blows a coffin through the air. If it weren't so tense, I'd laugh. Eventually though, the gas disperses and the shelling stops. Good lord.
So after everything's calmed down a bit, they get on with treating their wounded. They find one lad whose hip joint is now just so much torn up pulp. Turns out he's the one Bäumer comforted earlier on. Ouch. They consider mercy-killing him, seeing as he's unlikely to survive being moved, but a stretcher arrives before they can do it.
They eventually get back to the truck, but it's pretty plain to see that it's been a tough night for all of them, even if their losses are small. Their main job on the way back is to avoid the telephone wires that have dropped down low enough to take their heads off. What a lovely way to end a night's work.
So yeah, that's the chapter over, and what a chapter. Christ, I don't think I've been that tense in a while. Hell, I don't think I was that tense before my exam this morning. So really, reading has failed the intent of relaxing me this time, but I don't think it really matters. I really loved this chapter, even though I was fearing for their lives. I mean, it shows the work of a good author when they make you scared for the life of a fictional character, isn't it?
Signing off,
Nisa.
Our fourth chapter starts with the group going up to the front on "wiring duty", whatever that means: much as I love retro technology and gadgets, I have no clue how most of them work. They keep up good spirits, shouting jokes to overtaking lorries and making plans to steal a goose, but you can tell that this isn't a pleasant job that they're about to do. Mainly because they don't mind being thrown off the truck they're on and ending up in hospital with a broken arm. The only bone I've ever broken is a toe, and that really bloody hurt, so it must be pretty damn unpleasant if they don't mind that happening. Although it may just be the fact that they're going to the front. Painful injury or threat of death? Yeah, that's pretty unsurprising now that I think about it. They get to the gun line, pretty much as far away from the actual action as the front line can get as far as I could tell from this, and things get noticeably more tense. It turns out that something big is likely to happen that night, as the British have started battery fire an hour earlier than normal. Is it just me, or does it seem really odd that the trenches were run on a timetable? Something along the line of "so long as we're just staying where we are, start shelling at 2200 hours sharp". I was expecting a bit more chaos somehow. In any case, there's a bit of a discussion about how being at the front immediately puts you on alert, but I think that's an obvious enough side-effect that I won't over-discuss it.
We now get a discussion about how earth is the most important part of life in the trenches. I'll admit, I was surprised at the importance it's given. When Bäumer talks about ducking down to avoid shell-fire, there's almost an intimacy with the earth, which I really wasn't expecting; it's like it's taken on both a guarding and consoling role for them. I mean, read through this bit and try to tell me that, despite the horrific circumstances, this is not beautiful:
"When he presses himself to the earth, long and violently, when he urges himself deep into it with his face and with his limbs, under fire and with fear of death upon him, then the earth is his only friend, his brother, his mother, he groans out his terror and screams into its silence and safety"Maybe it's just me, but I imagine that that will stay with me for a while. There's a shorter section leading on from the earth part, where Bäumer describes how instinct comes to the fore when you get on to the front line, and he uses an interesting turn of phrase:
"We set out as soldiers, and we might be grumbling or we might be cheerful - we reach the zone where the front line begins, and we have turned into human animals."It's possibly the first time I've heard humans likened to animals in a good way. When you describe someone as an animal, it's usually to do with savageness and lack of civilised behaviour (essentially a description that can be applied to the majority of professional footballers), but here it's a reference to being in tune with your basic instincts and self-preservation. Another unexpected metaphor.
The group gets to wherever they're doing their wiring duty, there's a little bit of description about various different things going on behind the trenches, a quick stop to pick up equipment and they're on their way. They're close to the trenches now, and the tension is rising. I almost don't want to go any further, because it's one of those scenes where you can just tell that something bad is going to happen.
So it turns out that I've not been thinking literally enough, and wiring duty is literally setting up lines of barbed wire. In any other circumstance, I would probably have some kind of sarcastic comment about this like "riveting stuff", but it just seems wrong here. They finish after a few hours, but there's still time until the truck comes back to retrieve them, so most of them settle down to try and get a nap, our narrator included. He wakes up just in time to crawl away from some shelling. Knew it. Only one shell lands in amongst the group, so they're safe for now, but Bäumer is still stuck with one of the new recruits huddling into his chest, which is rather sweet.
So the shelling stops and people are safe for now, but the group are now subjected to the haunting sound of wounded horses screaming. Much as I want to be really affected by this scene, I'm feeling only slightly sympathetic. I have no idea why: I like animals, I get affected by lives lost in wars and the graphic detail here is pretty shocking, but I'm just not all that sad about it. I guess because I was so anxious about the characters themselves dying or getting hurt, horses getting hurt doesn't have the same impact; if I'm honest, after worrying about the human characters, the horses are pretty much a relief in contrast. It's a horrible thing to say, and I know it's bringing up the issue of animals in warfare, but if Remarque wanted me to care so much, then he should probably have focused on them a bit more before they were all killed.
So they go back to where they're supposed to meet the trucks, when another round of shelling starts up, forcing them to hide in a military graveyard. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting that round. Bäumer gets knocked around a bit and ends up taking shelter in the grave he was hiding behind. I would say something about the sanctity of the dead, but it's extreme circumstances. He's then told by Katczinsky that there's now a gas attack to worry about too. Wonderful. Whoever came up with gas must have either been seriously unlucky or a total sadist. It's the most horrific thing I remember learning in History of Medicine, simply because of how bloody effective it is at killing you. So, while Bäumer's lying in the shell crater with Kat, Kropp and another guy, the barrage of explosive and gas shells is still going on, so staying in the crater is, unfortunately, their only option. Gas is heavy so it sinks into the craters, but they can't lie on higher ground because there's a chance they'll get hit by explosives; damned if they do, damned if they don't. To make things worse, the fourth guy gets his arm trapped when a shell blows a coffin through the air. If it weren't so tense, I'd laugh. Eventually though, the gas disperses and the shelling stops. Good lord.
So after everything's calmed down a bit, they get on with treating their wounded. They find one lad whose hip joint is now just so much torn up pulp. Turns out he's the one Bäumer comforted earlier on. Ouch. They consider mercy-killing him, seeing as he's unlikely to survive being moved, but a stretcher arrives before they can do it.
They eventually get back to the truck, but it's pretty plain to see that it's been a tough night for all of them, even if their losses are small. Their main job on the way back is to avoid the telephone wires that have dropped down low enough to take their heads off. What a lovely way to end a night's work.
So yeah, that's the chapter over, and what a chapter. Christ, I don't think I've been that tense in a while. Hell, I don't think I was that tense before my exam this morning. So really, reading has failed the intent of relaxing me this time, but I don't think it really matters. I really loved this chapter, even though I was fearing for their lives. I mean, it shows the work of a good author when they make you scared for the life of a fictional character, isn't it?
Signing off,
Nisa.
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 3
Hey there. Managed to squeeze a little time out of my revision to update on here; there's only so many past papers and notes on the Tre Corone that one can do in an evening before going absolutely barking mad. In any case, I'll be alleviating my exam/revision related boredom with a little bit of misery. Don't get me wrong, it's been good so far, but WWI isn't the cheeriest subject matter available to write about. Anyway, I believe we left off just after Kemmerich had died, so presumably we can draw the line of cheeriness from death now, and hope that it rises at least a little off the base line.
This time, we start of with some reinforcements to the company, including 25 new recruits; what's the likelihood that about 80% of them will be cannon fodder before this book is over, do you think? In any case, Katczinsky decides to treat one of the new recruits with some beans and bully beef that he managed to get off of the cook-sergeant from when they all got double rations in chapter 1. Which is rather nice of him. Like I said before, I do love the camaraderie that the soldiers seem to have here; it's a little spot of brightness in amongst the misery of war.
So now we get a section dedicated to Katczinsky. He seems to be the smart, intuitive one out of the characters that have appeared so far, doing stuff like finding hay for comfortable sleeping and food when there's no-one and nothing else for miles around. For some reason he reminds me of Red from Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, he can get almost anything within reason. He seems to have the same sort of attitude as Red as well, finding humour where he can in tough situations. A useful kind of guy to have around, regardless.
We now move on to the company relaxing on the sunny side of camp. And before I forget to mention it, I just love this description of the camp here:
So the soldiers who had trained under Himmelstoss are rather pleased that he's now at the front, presumably because they can get some payback on him. Indeed, we're shown a rather satisfying revenge that Bäumer, Kropp, Haie and Tjaden carried out the night before they left for the front: namely beating him up in a back alley. Not the most honourable of schemes ever, but damn that has got to be satisfying. And on that satisfying note, we end our chapter. And we're quarter of the way already.
My favourite chapter so far, because we get to see more about some of the other men in the company and I presumably have a lot to look forward to with Himmelstoss now at the front.
Signing off,
Nisa.
This time, we start of with some reinforcements to the company, including 25 new recruits; what's the likelihood that about 80% of them will be cannon fodder before this book is over, do you think? In any case, Katczinsky decides to treat one of the new recruits with some beans and bully beef that he managed to get off of the cook-sergeant from when they all got double rations in chapter 1. Which is rather nice of him. Like I said before, I do love the camaraderie that the soldiers seem to have here; it's a little spot of brightness in amongst the misery of war.
So now we get a section dedicated to Katczinsky. He seems to be the smart, intuitive one out of the characters that have appeared so far, doing stuff like finding hay for comfortable sleeping and food when there's no-one and nothing else for miles around. For some reason he reminds me of Red from Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, he can get almost anything within reason. He seems to have the same sort of attitude as Red as well, finding humour where he can in tough situations. A useful kind of guy to have around, regardless.
We now move on to the company relaxing on the sunny side of camp. And before I forget to mention it, I just love this description of the camp here:
"It smells of tar, summertime and sweaty feet."I don't know why, but that just brings a smile to my face; there's no more description than that here, but it really evokes a sort of carefree feeling about the place, maybe because what we've had so far has been so downbeat. In any case, while they're there Katczinsky and Kropp have a bit of an argument about what the war essentially is like: Kat is off the opinion that after it's finished, people will just forget about it, while Kropp disagrees, arguing that if countries insist on going to war, their respective leaders should be the ones to fight, not soldiers. That idea would be pretty cool, if it could only be implemented; it would also give us more excuses to play Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax" at official events. The conversation then sort of drifts along into discussions (and probably a lot of bitching) about drill. Most of which I still consider useless. From drill, we move to Himmelstoss (the horrific instructor from chapter 2) and the idea that putting a man in uniform and a position of power over other people turns them into horrible people. Which is pretty much true. Well done for figuring that out before the psychologists, guys. In any case, our paragraph ends with the revelation that Himmelstoss has been called out to the front. I'm going to sound very cruel, but if he dies, there will be part of me cheering.
So the soldiers who had trained under Himmelstoss are rather pleased that he's now at the front, presumably because they can get some payback on him. Indeed, we're shown a rather satisfying revenge that Bäumer, Kropp, Haie and Tjaden carried out the night before they left for the front: namely beating him up in a back alley. Not the most honourable of schemes ever, but damn that has got to be satisfying. And on that satisfying note, we end our chapter. And we're quarter of the way already.
My favourite chapter so far, because we get to see more about some of the other men in the company and I presumably have a lot to look forward to with Himmelstoss now at the front.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 2
Hey guys, time for chapter two of All Quiet on the Western Front. But firstly, a little notice for those of you who follow my blog regularly. Because of my university exams, I'm probably only going to post intermittently until I finally finish them on the 20th. Considering the regularity I've gotten into the swing of recently, it's a bit annoying, but it's pretty important if I want to continue going to uni. Anyway, last chapter we'd learnt a little bit about Bäumer and his companions, and visited one of their dying friends in hospital. Fun times all around.
We start off the chapter with Bäumer musing about the lack of ties to pre-war lives that the younger soldiers have. An interesting topic, not necessarily one I'd think of either. The implication seems to be that the older soldiers, the ones with jobs, wives and children, have more ties to life before the war, so that they can see past the end of the war to a point where life continues as normal; the younger soldiers don't seem to have that option as they've been sent away at the point where they're just about to start lives of their own and the bonds between parents and girlfriends are at a particularly weak point. If that holds true, going back home will be singularly awkward then.
The next paragraph is quite a short one and tries to defend Müller for wanting to take Kemmerich's boots: it makes sense seeing as the orderlies will most likely steal them after he's dead and he wouldn't need them even if he did live, considering he only has one leg now. The argument is well-reasoned, but somehow seems a bit out of place. Why insert it into the chapter after Müller has tried taking them?
There's another fairly short paragraph about the effect that basic training had on them. Having gone in with enthusiasm and naive patriotism, they have all that beaten out of them through drudgery, routine and abuse from above. And while I will admit that discipline is essential for any large group of people, there's usually more chance of discipline actually appearing when you earn people's respect, not just shout at them to respect you. That and I could never understand the emphasis on marching drills in basic training; okay, you're increasing discipline, but you're also not actually training them for trench warfare or modern warfare in general. I mean, strategy would sort of dictate that everyone marching in straight lines would be very easy to kill, wouldn't it?
It skips in time a bit to when their class is split into threes and fours, and shipped off to different squads. Bäumer and his mates seem to have gotten a real bastard for a squad leader, who seems to hate them for little to no reason at all. Hence giving them tasks like clearing the parade ground of snow with a dust-pan and brush, in response to petty things like having your underwear protrude a little too far when it's laid out for inspection. It seems to stop after they threaten to start an inquiry on him. Got to love turning the system back on people who abuse it. Anyway, despite all that, they seem to appreciate the basic training because it toughened them up. Granted, the marching probably never came in handy, but I imagine the tougher attitude helped.
So now we switch back to the present, where Bäumer is sitting by Kemmerich's bed as the doctors go round picking out patients that can be moved, in order to send them home. Kemmerich seems oddly lucid for a dying man, realising that his leg's been amputated and that he's probably going to die. There's a slight diversion into how small these boy soldiers are underneath their thick boots and uniforms, and just how fragile the human body really is. So Kemmerich dies and the complete and utter apathy that the doctors and orderlies have is sickening really. He hasn't been dead more than a few minutes or so and they're already bundling him up in tarpaulin. I mean, you can kind of understand them wanting to use the beds for another injured person, but it's still a bit much when none of them could really give a crap. Anyway, that's pretty much where the chapter ends, right after Bäumer gives Müller those boots.
Again, a very well-written chapter. That I'm vaguely depressed now is testament to that. Thus far not much of a plot as such, but then I suppose this is more a slice-of-life/character study kind of affair.
Signing off,
Nisa.
We start off the chapter with Bäumer musing about the lack of ties to pre-war lives that the younger soldiers have. An interesting topic, not necessarily one I'd think of either. The implication seems to be that the older soldiers, the ones with jobs, wives and children, have more ties to life before the war, so that they can see past the end of the war to a point where life continues as normal; the younger soldiers don't seem to have that option as they've been sent away at the point where they're just about to start lives of their own and the bonds between parents and girlfriends are at a particularly weak point. If that holds true, going back home will be singularly awkward then.
The next paragraph is quite a short one and tries to defend Müller for wanting to take Kemmerich's boots: it makes sense seeing as the orderlies will most likely steal them after he's dead and he wouldn't need them even if he did live, considering he only has one leg now. The argument is well-reasoned, but somehow seems a bit out of place. Why insert it into the chapter after Müller has tried taking them?
There's another fairly short paragraph about the effect that basic training had on them. Having gone in with enthusiasm and naive patriotism, they have all that beaten out of them through drudgery, routine and abuse from above. And while I will admit that discipline is essential for any large group of people, there's usually more chance of discipline actually appearing when you earn people's respect, not just shout at them to respect you. That and I could never understand the emphasis on marching drills in basic training; okay, you're increasing discipline, but you're also not actually training them for trench warfare or modern warfare in general. I mean, strategy would sort of dictate that everyone marching in straight lines would be very easy to kill, wouldn't it?
It skips in time a bit to when their class is split into threes and fours, and shipped off to different squads. Bäumer and his mates seem to have gotten a real bastard for a squad leader, who seems to hate them for little to no reason at all. Hence giving them tasks like clearing the parade ground of snow with a dust-pan and brush, in response to petty things like having your underwear protrude a little too far when it's laid out for inspection. It seems to stop after they threaten to start an inquiry on him. Got to love turning the system back on people who abuse it. Anyway, despite all that, they seem to appreciate the basic training because it toughened them up. Granted, the marching probably never came in handy, but I imagine the tougher attitude helped.
So now we switch back to the present, where Bäumer is sitting by Kemmerich's bed as the doctors go round picking out patients that can be moved, in order to send them home. Kemmerich seems oddly lucid for a dying man, realising that his leg's been amputated and that he's probably going to die. There's a slight diversion into how small these boy soldiers are underneath their thick boots and uniforms, and just how fragile the human body really is. So Kemmerich dies and the complete and utter apathy that the doctors and orderlies have is sickening really. He hasn't been dead more than a few minutes or so and they're already bundling him up in tarpaulin. I mean, you can kind of understand them wanting to use the beds for another injured person, but it's still a bit much when none of them could really give a crap. Anyway, that's pretty much where the chapter ends, right after Bäumer gives Müller those boots.
Again, a very well-written chapter. That I'm vaguely depressed now is testament to that. Thus far not much of a plot as such, but then I suppose this is more a slice-of-life/character study kind of affair.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
All Quiet on the Western Front - Part 1
On to my third book now, the first book from my various ill-advised trips to the second-hand book stall (my pile of immediate "to-read" books is ridiculously high at the moment, 14 books after this one, but I can't help feeding the rush that I get from the feel of a new book in my hands). Got this one mainly because it's one of those books that should at least be attempted once in a lifetime.
Anyway, first chapter and I'm already excited by the smell of the old pages. Wow, I'm getting far too excited. We start our story 5 miles behind the front lines, where our main characters, a group of German soldiers (with names like Tjaden and Müller, how could they be any other nationality?) are having a celebration of sorts, to mark the fact that they now have enough food to eat. Well, as far as mildly depressing starts go, that's a good one. They also have double rations of tobacco, which as a non-smoker I can't see the appeal of, but I suppose war could drive you to anything. So we're introduced to the group, who I'll try to differentiate between as best I can (big casts all at once confuse me somewhat), as they line up for food: there's the narrator Bäumer; his friends from school, Kropp, Müller and Leer; a locksmith Tjaden, a peat-digger Westhus and their leader Katczinsky. All of them, apart from Katczinsky, are only 19 years old. So it turns out that the cook-sergeant has cooked for 150 men, the normal size of their company, the day after they've been reduced to 80 men because of long-range shelling from the other side. They seem to be rather blasé about the fact that the food that their eating in effectively paid for by the loss of almost half their group. But I suppose rumbling bellies overcome decorum in this sort of situation. I'll admit, while the hints of the brutality of war do add up to make a rather depressing tone, it does have some great bits of humour and camaraderie between the characters. Like when the company commander comes along and forces the cook-sergeant to hand out all 150 rations to 80 men.
It skips now to Bäumer, Kropp and Müller going out to the field behind the barracks to read their post and to take a dump. A bit odd to read about, I'll tell you that. At this point it seems that they've gotten to the point where this sort of thing as a communal activity is just second nature now. Our narrator even begins to describe the beautiful things you can see while taking a communal dump in a field. And it does sound rather pretty, if in a very odd way:
Indeed we do. Kantorek turns out to be their form-master from back when they were at school, who persuades his entire class to enlist in the army. They all agree, some after some persuasion, mainly because of the wide view that those who refused to enlist were cowards. And while I'm very supportive of the armed forces, whatever nationality they happen to be, it says something about them when they resort to the "coward" tactic in order to get recruits. So after actually fighting out in the front-line and seeing one of their class-mates killed, ironically the one who was most hesitant, they realise that war is not the wonderful, patriotic duty that their teacher told them it was. And I must say, I have to agree with the book here: it's not a teacher's place to force people into following particular paths, it's a teacher's place to prepare their students for whatever path they decide to follow.
Anyway, whilst in the field, they decide to visit another of their friends, Kemmerich, who is currently in hospital with a wound to the leg. They get there and I realised that this wouldn't be the kind of hospital visit where everyone is cheery and optimistic about the treatment these people are getting. Quite why I forgot that after about a year studying the history of medicine, I don't know. Anyway, it turns out that the wounded leg had to be amputated, and that Kemmerich is unlikely to be going home. They try and be cheerful for the dying guy's benefit, but it sounds really forced and just plain awkward. They persuade an orderly to give their friend some morphine, to help with the pain, but none of them are under the illusion that he'll survive the night. The chapter ends with them walking back to the barracks.
Well, that was...depressing, if really well-written. I guess for me it's very poignant of what soldiers used to go through with war, and to be honest I don't think it's gotten much better for them over the years. And the fact that as nations we still don't give them the credit they deserve is, I think, one of the worst things we could possibly do. Sorry, this rant may well crop up a few more times before this review is done, I just feel that strongly about it.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Anyway, first chapter and I'm already excited by the smell of the old pages. Wow, I'm getting far too excited. We start our story 5 miles behind the front lines, where our main characters, a group of German soldiers (with names like Tjaden and Müller, how could they be any other nationality?) are having a celebration of sorts, to mark the fact that they now have enough food to eat. Well, as far as mildly depressing starts go, that's a good one. They also have double rations of tobacco, which as a non-smoker I can't see the appeal of, but I suppose war could drive you to anything. So we're introduced to the group, who I'll try to differentiate between as best I can (big casts all at once confuse me somewhat), as they line up for food: there's the narrator Bäumer; his friends from school, Kropp, Müller and Leer; a locksmith Tjaden, a peat-digger Westhus and their leader Katczinsky. All of them, apart from Katczinsky, are only 19 years old. So it turns out that the cook-sergeant has cooked for 150 men, the normal size of their company, the day after they've been reduced to 80 men because of long-range shelling from the other side. They seem to be rather blasé about the fact that the food that their eating in effectively paid for by the loss of almost half their group. But I suppose rumbling bellies overcome decorum in this sort of situation. I'll admit, while the hints of the brutality of war do add up to make a rather depressing tone, it does have some great bits of humour and camaraderie between the characters. Like when the company commander comes along and forces the cook-sergeant to hand out all 150 rations to 80 men.
It skips now to Bäumer, Kropp and Müller going out to the field behind the barracks to read their post and to take a dump. A bit odd to read about, I'll tell you that. At this point it seems that they've gotten to the point where this sort of thing as a communal activity is just second nature now. Our narrator even begins to describe the beautiful things you can see while taking a communal dump in a field. And it does sound rather pretty, if in a very odd way:
"The blue sky is above us. On the horizon we can see the yellow observation balloons with the sun shining on them, and white puffs of smoke from the tracer bullets. Sometimes you see a sudden sheaf of them going up, when they are chasing an airman."And so on. They play a few rounds of cards and sort of communicate how close they were to dying back there, without actually talking about it. I know that that description just then sucked, but it's all I can come up with at the moment. While they're out there, Kropp finds a letter from a guy called Kantorek, who we'll presumably now hear about.
Indeed we do. Kantorek turns out to be their form-master from back when they were at school, who persuades his entire class to enlist in the army. They all agree, some after some persuasion, mainly because of the wide view that those who refused to enlist were cowards. And while I'm very supportive of the armed forces, whatever nationality they happen to be, it says something about them when they resort to the "coward" tactic in order to get recruits. So after actually fighting out in the front-line and seeing one of their class-mates killed, ironically the one who was most hesitant, they realise that war is not the wonderful, patriotic duty that their teacher told them it was. And I must say, I have to agree with the book here: it's not a teacher's place to force people into following particular paths, it's a teacher's place to prepare their students for whatever path they decide to follow.
Anyway, whilst in the field, they decide to visit another of their friends, Kemmerich, who is currently in hospital with a wound to the leg. They get there and I realised that this wouldn't be the kind of hospital visit where everyone is cheery and optimistic about the treatment these people are getting. Quite why I forgot that after about a year studying the history of medicine, I don't know. Anyway, it turns out that the wounded leg had to be amputated, and that Kemmerich is unlikely to be going home. They try and be cheerful for the dying guy's benefit, but it sounds really forced and just plain awkward. They persuade an orderly to give their friend some morphine, to help with the pain, but none of them are under the illusion that he'll survive the night. The chapter ends with them walking back to the barracks.
Well, that was...depressing, if really well-written. I guess for me it's very poignant of what soldiers used to go through with war, and to be honest I don't think it's gotten much better for them over the years. And the fact that as nations we still don't give them the credit they deserve is, I think, one of the worst things we could possibly do. Sorry, this rant may well crop up a few more times before this review is done, I just feel that strongly about it.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Monday, 9 May 2011
From The Prince of Mist to All Quiet on the Western Front
It's been an interesting journey through the twists and turns of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Prince of Mist, but now it is finally drawing to a close.
So overall, what did I think of this? I think that this is a good book, if quite hit and miss at times.
In terms of the story, it's very engaging and I imagine that if I had picked it up when I was around 13, I would have loved the mystery and the secret history that the characters have. But that isn't to say that it's perfect, far from it. My main problem with the book was the sheer amount of pointless scenes, seemingly purely to show that these characters are as normal as normal can be; an audience should not still need convincing of this around chapter 9, seeing as there are only 18 chapters in total. My other problem is how the ending is dealt with. For a conclusion to the conflict that's as brutal and uncompromising as this, the final chapter and the epilogue did a poor job of dealing with it.
The characters are, for the most part, wonderfully written. Out of all the characters though, the one who seemed to have the most attention lavished on him was Cain, the eponymous Prince of Mist. I'll admit, he was probably my favourite character, if only because he made me laugh sometimes. He goes through a strange process of becoming less scary the more the reader knows about him, which is probably why we're never actually told what his origins are, which is nice I suppose.
Overall, an imaginative, well-written book with plenty of suspense and mystery, that is let down by the occasional weak moment. It's going to sound odd, but I think that if Zafon had written this with adults in mind instead of "young adults", the weak moments could have largely been avoided; having read both of the adult works of his that have been translated into English at around the age of 15-17, I can say with confidence that he is much more in his zone as a writer when addressing an older audience. In any case, the overwhelming sense that I got from my time growing up is that adults seem to think that we're simpler than we are: a story is more engaging when the author isn't simplifying his language for the 13-17 year old sales demographic, because we know that the author isn't pandering to us. But, I will admit that this is Zafon's first published novel, so I can forgive him for some mis-steps, considering he wrote two of my favourite books ever. My final rating: 3.5/5
Now to preview my next book for review. Largely considered a classic war novel, I'll be reviewing All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. My edition is somewhat unhelpful by not providing a blurb with which I can give you a taste of the kind of thing that is to come, so I'll be using one from Wikipedia. It's sad, I know.
Signing off,
Nisa.
So overall, what did I think of this? I think that this is a good book, if quite hit and miss at times.
In terms of the story, it's very engaging and I imagine that if I had picked it up when I was around 13, I would have loved the mystery and the secret history that the characters have. But that isn't to say that it's perfect, far from it. My main problem with the book was the sheer amount of pointless scenes, seemingly purely to show that these characters are as normal as normal can be; an audience should not still need convincing of this around chapter 9, seeing as there are only 18 chapters in total. My other problem is how the ending is dealt with. For a conclusion to the conflict that's as brutal and uncompromising as this, the final chapter and the epilogue did a poor job of dealing with it.
The characters are, for the most part, wonderfully written. Out of all the characters though, the one who seemed to have the most attention lavished on him was Cain, the eponymous Prince of Mist. I'll admit, he was probably my favourite character, if only because he made me laugh sometimes. He goes through a strange process of becoming less scary the more the reader knows about him, which is probably why we're never actually told what his origins are, which is nice I suppose.
Overall, an imaginative, well-written book with plenty of suspense and mystery, that is let down by the occasional weak moment. It's going to sound odd, but I think that if Zafon had written this with adults in mind instead of "young adults", the weak moments could have largely been avoided; having read both of the adult works of his that have been translated into English at around the age of 15-17, I can say with confidence that he is much more in his zone as a writer when addressing an older audience. In any case, the overwhelming sense that I got from my time growing up is that adults seem to think that we're simpler than we are: a story is more engaging when the author isn't simplifying his language for the 13-17 year old sales demographic, because we know that the author isn't pandering to us. But, I will admit that this is Zafon's first published novel, so I can forgive him for some mis-steps, considering he wrote two of my favourite books ever. My final rating: 3.5/5
Now to preview my next book for review. Largely considered a classic war novel, I'll be reviewing All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. My edition is somewhat unhelpful by not providing a blurb with which I can give you a taste of the kind of thing that is to come, so I'll be using one from Wikipedia. It's sad, I know.
"The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front."Not a very good blurb, but the only one I could really find that got the job done. I'll admit, I'm not going into this one completely blind, as I watched the film adaptation as part of my high school History class, but I don't remember it that well, considering that the class was pretty noisy as it was the last lesson before summer holidays and the teacher looked to be on the verge of mental collapse. So I'm near blind, which is good too. In any case, I hope you enjoyed joining me with The Prince of Mist and I hope that you enjoy All Quiet on the Western Front as well.
Signing off,
Nisa.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)