In August 1914, a German troop train sped off on the Western Front, and the windows were filled with elated soldiers, waving their hands and singing songs, sure they would be the victors in a few weeks, but the planned "Blitzkrieg" turned into a four-year war, and by November 1918, most of them had not returned alive.
In this war, known as World War 1,
A total of 16543185 people died,
among them 9721937 soldiers,
civilian 6821248 names,
21228813 total, wounded (or disabled) soldiers,
A total of between 50 million and 100 million people were harmed by the war
The author Erich Maria Remarack, as a witness and survivor of the First World War, intuitively describes in "No War on the Western Front" the fate of the high school students represented by the protagonist Paul Boymer, who were seduced by their teachers and were driven from school to the battlefield in ignorance, and finally died in the murderous war machine.
He was killed in October 1918. On that day, the entire front line was silent. There is only one record in the war report of the army headquarters: there is no war on the Western Front.
He fell forward, as if asleep on the ground. If you turn him over, you'll see that he probably didn't suffer for long—he had a calm expression on his face, as if he were happy with the end. - "No War on the Western Front"
Remark is an outstanding and charismatic writer and artist, his shocking brushstrokes are fierce and cruel, unadorned, and in the midst of infinite and profound uneasiness, creating delicate and gentle rhythms and pulses, light and color. Unlike the book's protagonist, Paul, Remak was a survivor of World War I. War and exile have shaped Remarck's life and work. He was a member of the "Lost Generation" and was always "on the front of criticism, accusation and praise."
No writer has described war so openly and mercilessly as a sea of cruelty and suffering in such a way that remarck has. When he chanted the almost sacred imagery with extreme boldness in the midst of hardship and hardship, the music of "worship of the earth" and "sacrifice" stirred between his lines—it was the cruel and magnificent "Spring Sacrifice" that belonged to him.
At the beginning of the war, a group of 19-year-old young teenagers (high school students), under the encouragement of his teacher Cantorek, gave lengthy speeches in gymnastics classes again and again, until the whole class, under his leadership, with full of enthusiasm, resolutely joined the army, threw themselves into the ranks of "defending the family and defending the country", and experienced the horrors of war on the Western Front, and finally sacrificed themselves on the battlefield...
The first modern war in human history, composed of heavy artillery, aircraft, submarines, tanks, as well as poison gas and flamethrowers, the lethality released, and the cruelty of war, are simply unimaginable to those who have not experienced real wars... Even, many soldiers, in the protracted killing, finally had the idea of deserting
In his narration of the entire course of the war, Remark did not have a tendency from beginning to end, but as a person in the war bureau, he described and truthfully depicted various tragic pictures in the course of the war, and fully displayed to the reader a group of 18- and 9-year-old soldiers who were still children, facing the cruel scenes of war, facing the life and death of opponents and companions, and facing the psychology of friendship and love. The details are portrayed in detail, as if witnessed by their own eyes, and people can't bear to read,
"People can't understand that these broken faces are still living day after day. And it's just a field hospital, a ward — thousands in Germany, thousands in France, thousands in Russia. If all this can happen, then writing, acting, thinking, is all in utter futility! If thousands of years of civilization simply cannot stop the flow of blood and the painful imprisonment, then everything is a lie and does not matter. Only the field hospitals indicate what war is.
We don't count the days week by week anymore. It was still winter when I came. When the shell exploded, the frozen dirt and shrapnel were almost as dangerous, and now the grass was green. Our lives alternated between the front line and the barracks, and we were almost used to it. War is nothing more than a cause of death, like cancer and tuberculosis, influenza and dysentery, but death is more frequent, more diverse, more cruel. "------ "No War on the Western Front"
There are a few details that are enough to give the reader a deep understanding of the war:
1. The protagonist Paul stabbed the enemy to death with three knives on the battlefield, however, in the face of an opponent who had lost the ability to resist, Paul fed him water, desperately trying to save his life, and in the case of no way to save him, he chose to accompany the deceased silently to spend the last moments of his life.
In Paul's eyes at that moment, the opponent was no longer an enemy, but just an ordinary person, with a family and children, who could have lived their own lives without revenge, but the war made them each take up guns and bayonets, and become opponents who either died or I lived, and on the battlefield, they each had the right to choose life and death.
What can victory and defeat in war bring to each other? In the final analysis, war is in whose interest? Whose fault is it?
2, seriously injured, dying in the hospital, waiting for the death to come to Kmerisi, there is a pair of good boots that can be footed, companions Miller and Paul when they went to the hospital to visit him, Miller offered to ask for his boots, Clercy was weak, but resolutely refused Miller, later, Kmmerissi told Paul who came to visit him, the boots were left to Miller, because he knew that he was going to die. If Clency still had those boots, Miller would rather run barefoot through the barbed wire than bother to get it. But now in the case of Kemerissie, those boots were useless to him, and Miller just needed them, and Kemerisi was dying, and it was the same for anyone who got it. Through the paper, you can inadvertently feel that Kemerisi's deep desire to survive will involuntarily think of his mother who cried swollen and swollen at the train station when she first sent him away.
3. In the terrible battlefield that covered the whole world, in less than a year, Paul and his comrades-in-arms, who were as deep as brothers, finally learned to make themselves happy in the gap between the wars, stealing geese and roasting to eat, smuggling into the enemy's defense zone, and meeting girls with food, although they did not understand each other's language, but it did not prevent them from feeling happy. Those beautiful moments flowed quietly under Remack's pen.
In the face of war, the beautiful feelings of being a person are always fleeting, the eyes are closed, and the scene changes again, that is, Paul carries Carter with a broken leg on his back, shuttles through the rain of bullets and bullets, and races with time, although he tries to encourage Carter and wants him to live, but when he arrives at the medical center, the doctor tells Paul that Carter is already a dead man, although Paul does not believe or believe it, thinking that Carter is only temporarily unconscious, but the truth of the matter is: Carter has already been on the way to run on his back, He died of a cold gun, and what he desperately carried back was the body of Carter, who was already dead.
4, after the baptism of the Second Year's War, the battlefield, serious lack of food and clothing, there is a picture is, one second, Paul and his comrades broke off the part of the bread that was chewed by the disgusting rats, and the next second, everyone is very remorseful, how can it be thrown away? Those who at least can not let themselves suffer from hunger that is more painful than death.
Although the book is a long time away from now, but there are no difficult and difficult sentences throughout, Remack's text expression is clear and clear, and Hemingway's style is quite similar, Remack very much likes to use more powerful short sentences, if you use the long sentences that were usually used in Proust at that time, the whole book will undoubtedly lose a lot of color, so Remarque's writing language is fluent and free, and indeed adds a lot of points to the work.
"No War on the Western Front" is a rare anti-war novel, there is no just or unjust words in the book, only a low and helpless narrative of the trauma caused by the war, reading the scroll, as if the sound of mournful gunshots is still incessant and reverberating for a long time.
Hats off, Raymark! May there be no war on the Western Front! May the world be at peace forever!