THOUGHTS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What strikes me most about the first five chapters of \u201cAll Quiet on the Western Front\u201d is that the characters are not really developed in the classic sense of a novel. We do not know much about the small group of soldiers who come together from the same school and join a few others in a single unit. We know names; such a Paul B\u00e4umer, the narrator in the book, some of his school friends such as Tjaden and Muller, the other soldiers they join like Katczinsky, the cobbler, the peat digger, Westhus and the farmer, Detering. What is developed is a detailed description of the war, which in the first five chapters is the subject more than the men who fight in it. In chapters 1 and 2, the work is divided between food arriving at the front and the death of a fellow soldier. There are details as to the fat in the stew, the number of cigarettes, but little talk of how it affects the people in the story. In the death of the fellow soldier, we know his name, but the details are about the loss of his pocket watch, his equipment that those who will remain covet, and the treatment of wounded soldiers in the aid station where the scene takes place. Another example is in chapter 4, where the main thing we learn about Katczynski is that no matter where he is, he is able to find food, and a great amount of detail tells us how and when he finds what the unit needs. We know \u201cKat\u201d, as he is called, is married and has children, we know he is a cobbler, but beyond that, it is only his abilities in war that are developed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This reading assignment of the first five chapters centers on the conduct of war, such as the use of poison gas that is described; \u201cgas creeps over the ground and sinks into the hollows like a big, soft jellyfish as it floats int our shell-hole and lolls there obscenely\u201d. One can almost feel the dirt clods and the wooden splinters whiz past while reading about the bombardment in chapter 5. But the actual characters are simply given lines that see them reacting to the events around them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After 70 pages, the reader is bludgeoned by the account of what war has become and you join the characters in understanding the devastating effect this horror has on them. War is not heroic or patriotic, as B\u00e4umer\u2019s school master had taught. War is blood and death, pain and sorrow, unshakable comradery of those who live through it, and the daily absurdities that lead the book\u2019s characters to surrender any innocence they had at the start. Everyone in uniform feels betrayed by the older generation, including the parents, that spurred them on to volunteer for the war. In the end, without knowing much about the men in this unit, we watch each of them being psychologically destroyed by what they endure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my earlier posting, I stated that \u2018historians tell you what happened and why but it is the writers who tell you what it means\u2019. Reading the first five chapters makes you lose your breath. The horror. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THOUGHTS What strikes me most about the first five chapters of \u201cAll Quiet on the Western Front\u201d is that the characters are not really developed in the classic sense of a novel. We do not know much about the small … Continue reading