Remarque ''Nothing new on the Western Front'' (Audio Book): Summary and Commentary
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The novel has become a manifesto against the atrocities of war, which are described without lyricism, with a cold and realistic gaze. The book, published first in a magazine and then in volume, immediately achieved great success and also became an Oscar-winning film in 1930. Remarque's work was then harshly opposed by the Nazi regime, which burned copies of Nothing back to the Western Front.
SUMMARY
The protagonist of the novel is the young Paul Bäumer who, right from school, is heavily indoctrinated by teachers into the myth of war and the values of nationalism, based on patriotic pride and the superiority of his own nation over others. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Paul and his peers (including Kropp, Müller, Westhus, Tjaden) volunteered for the front, convinced that they were experiencing an exciting adventure characterized by the ideals of heroism and courage.
At the front they meet Stanislaus "Kat" Katczinsky, a charismatic soldier, older than them, who becomes a point of reference for Paul. Soon, the protagonist and his fellow soldiers bitterly realize that the reality of war is very different from that described by propaganda. The fatigue of the trenches, the lack of food, the constant risk of death mark Paul's passage from adolescence to adult life: the war is not at all adventurous and heroic, but is just a tragic mass of randomness and unpreparedness: the recruits, badly trained and thrown into useless assaults to conquer ridiculous meters of battlefield from the adversary, they are the ones who suffer the most from the physical and psychological repercussions of war. The soldiers' only interest, amidst the screams of pain, the rats infesting the trenches and the continuous bombing, is to make it to the next day or to the new meal alive.
The cruel senselessness of the war, in which Paul no longer sees any end or purpose, is also manifested in the short periods of leave and return to civilian life, from which the protagonist now feels completely separated, as if the horror of the war had drained him of every trace of humanity. Paul manages to find an understanding only with his dying mother, shortly before returning to the front.
Here, in the meantime, the deaths of comrades and friends follow one another: Westhus is torn apart by a grenade right before Paul's eyes, while soldier Kemmerich dies after the amputation of a wounded leg; Müller is hit by a rocket and dies in terrible pain. Only Tjaden will survive the end of the war. One day, during a patrol operation, Paul takes refuge in a ditch, where he finds himself faced with an enemy soldier; although the latter is a human being like him, Paul, in a fit of terror, stabs him, witnessing his agony for hours. Injured, Paul is admitted to a hospital with his friend Albert, who has his leg amputated. Paul, having recovered, is forced to say goodbye to his close friend to return to the front.
Paul also sees his role model dramatically die: "Kat" Katczinsky is hit by an artillery shell and, although the protagonist does his utmost to save his life by transporting him to the infirmary, Kat arrives there already dead. Paul thus loses all desire to live, so much so that it is completely indifferent to him whether he dies on the battlefield or survives the hostilities. Shortly before the end of the war in the autumn of 1918, Paul is killed by a grenade on a day when, as the war bulletin states, there is "nothing new on the Western Front".
COMMENT
All Quiet on the Western Front is, first of all, an autobiographical novel, which is based on the front experience of Remarque, who served on the Western Front in 1917, at the age of nineteen, being seriously wounded near Verdun and was then repatriated to a hospital in Germany until the end of the war. We have a clear indication of autobiography in the name of the main character, Paul taken from Remarque's real name, that is, Erich Paul Remark.
Remarque's harsh, lucid and direct j'accuse against the war, in which there is nothing valiant or heroic, describes in detail the ruthless logic of which every soldier is the victim. From the first pages, emphasis is in fact placed on the propagandist logic, whereby students are deceived by teachers and lecturers (such as Kantorek, Paul's professor) with nationalistic rhetoric and then sadistically humiliated by the military institution, personified by the non-commissioned officer Himmelstoss, who does not even prepare them adequately for the war effort.
Ideals are soon replaced by the concrete reasons of everyday life, out of survival instinct: getting food and clothes, a dry place to sleep, shelter from grenades. The weakest, like the student Behm (the only one to try to oppose the growing nationalism widespread in German schools), are condemned to succumb first. The resulting dehumanization, marked by the mourning and atrocious deaths of fellow soldiers, is all the more strident the more it is evident that even the enemies are simply other men, in every way similar to the protagonist. The protagonist's death - in Verdun, in October 1918, with "such a serene expression, almost as if he were happy to end like this" - thus acquires a symbolic value: it is the "death" of the real author, marked by tragedy of war, and it is also the death of a generation swept away by the myths of nationalism and militarism.
The writer decides to change his name to Erich Maria Remarque as a tribute to his mother, recovering the family's previous surname.
