264 orrialde
English hizkuntza
2004ko urt. 24a(e)an Continuum(e)n argitaratua.
"Written during the last years of the Weimar Republic, the two novels collected here address the urgent problems of that age. Both Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) and Joseph Roth (1894-1939) served in World War I, Remarque with the German army and Roth with the Austrian. Their experiences would help define what Gertrude Stein referred to as the "Lost Generation." All Quiet on the Western Front is the testimony of a soldier who had become aware of how much he, and those of his generation who had survived, had been affected by the trauma of the Great War. For Joseph Roth, World War I had cost him his homeland and turned him into a nomad. Job, in abridged form for The German Library, addresses the theme of Jewish identity in a newly mobilized society."--BOOK JACKET
Erich must have been to war, there is no other way he could have done such a good job describing the horrors, joys, banalities, and excitement of rest war. There is no other way he could have known how a person becomes completely changed by it, hollowed out by it, and yet must continue on. If he hasn't, he is an even better writer still.
A re-read. Tremendous, of course. The translation (from German to British English) renders the prose a bit matter-of-fact, losing some of its emotional heft, but this book is still rightly poised amongst the top war novels of all time.
