"No War on the West Front" is a novel published by German writer Erich Maria Remak in 1929. It is a work that reflects the First World War. After the publication of this novel, it not only had a large number of readers in Germany, but was also translated into English, gaining a great reputation internationally.
Translator Jiang Yi literally translated the original German novel in 1929, published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House in 2020, and specially included Remake's unpublished manuscripts.
"No War on the West Front" depicts the experiences of a group of high school students in World War I. These high school students are idealists in school. The protagonist Boimer likes literature. Some of his classmates like physics, some are good at thinking. They are incited by the teacher's chauvinistic ideas. With the encouragement of the principal, the four of their students were sent to the battlefield when they were 19 years old.
What awaits these young people is not the hero's halo. It is a real and cruel war, an extreme living environment, a fuzzy and cold battlefield. What they saw were bleeding corpses, the smell of gunfire flying everywhere, and the screams of the soldiers before their death.
Boymer gradually felt that the front line was a mysterious vortex, and the vortex was slowly and irresistibly sucking him in. They were not fighting, but they killed each other to protect themselves from being destroyed. Like the beast, Boimer and his classmates did not feel the glory and pride that the principal said, only pain and death bothered them.
And during the armistice, Boymer returned to his hometown. Although his body returned to his familiar hometown, his soul was deeply trapped in that bloody battlefield. He is no longer the hopeful and confident little boy a year ago, but a cold and desperate soldier who is full of death. He has no past and no future.
After he returned home, he had a gap with his family and did not accept him in his past life. Finally, without any war, Boymer was killed and he died peacefully, perhaps this was his best relief. And that day, the front line was extremely quiet, and there was a message on the battle report: There was no war on the Western Front.
There is a clip in the movie "The Eight Hundred", which is infected by the unyielding warrior spirit of the soldiers of the Sihang Warehouse. Three junior high school students in the safe area of the rented area smuggled from the underworld to the Sihang Warehouse with passion. But before they could understand what the real war was, they were swallowed by artillery fire in a sudden conflict.
The cruelty and ruthlessness of war are undoubtedly revealed in this clip. Teenagers worship heroes and can be called passionate teenagers. However, what needs to be warned is that heroes are all bloody, and the sacrifices behind the heroes are also huge.
"No War on the West Front" describes the destruction of human nature by war from the perspective of a natural person. Its destruction is comprehensive without leaving any room for space, and what is directly destroyed is the belief in the future.
The protagonist is a young man who is inexperienced in the world. From romantic heroism to bloody battlefield, two extreme reversals have gradually destroyed his inner world. When he became cold and lonely, incompatible with the people in his hometown, he could not even find his sense of social identity. The quiet life he had longed for on the battlefield was unable to go back in reality. He could only choose to return to the battlefield and die on the battlefield with destiny joy.
What kind of tragedy consciousness is this?
It was the war and the belligerent ideas under chauvinism.
"No War on the West Front" has become a classic mainly because while expressing the cruelty of war, it also exposes the destruction of human nature by the shadow of war. More importantly, it embodies the tragic consciousness of life. The shadow of war, the destruction of faith is more powerful than shells and poisonous gas, and it is irrescueable because the destruction of faith is irrescueable.
Therefore, the far-reaching practical significance of "No War on the West Front" is to remind us who are in peacetime and love peace and stay away from war.
