I spotted this in WHSmith while waiting for a flight to Hong Kong. I almost bought it, but it turned out I already had a copy on my e-reader. I read some of it while on the flight, but ended up putting it aside, as it really isn’t holiday reading. Once back, I picked it up again and finished it.
The book tells the story of a handful of German soldiers in the First World War, in particular the main character, Paul Bäumer. In it, he has lost his childhood and several of his friends to a war that is total, obliterating chaos. The front is brutal and devastating, and the gaps between are mostly filled with interactions between his friends. These tend to be either jokes and laughter, attempts to distance themselves from the trauma, or beautifully poignant moments. A section where two of them steal and cook a goose particularly affected me.
There is a section where Paul gets some leave and has a chance to return home and visit his family that devastated me. He is utterly disconnected from his previous life, he may as well be a different person now. He ends up avoiding people, since they just want to ask about his experiences on the front. He sits in his room, staring at his bookshelf, trying to force himself to feel any of the joy and excitement the books used to bring him.
I watched most of the recent Netflix film adaption, but stopped before the end. I’ll probably come back and finish it, but I was quite disappointed. The war scenes were brilliantly shot, and I could see the effect it was having on Paul but I felt it lacked any of the introspection or heart of the book. The introduction of the generals into the story, and the scenes where they’re trying to get the armistice in place felt contrived and again took away from the point the book made so well. It removed the scenes where Paul travels home, and also the scenes where the recruits are tormented by their training officer and then later return the favour when he’s sent to the front. The book has a lot to say about humanity beyond simply “war is bad”, despite how clearly it says that message.