/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21323517]

Scholars and shitposters of /lit/, this is the time and thread to discuss Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front/Im Westen nichts Neues, an awful book full of "anaemic asphalt poetry".
Such was the opinion of Wilhelm Müller-Scheld, erstwhile president of the short-lived NS film academy, in his 1929 study and criticism of Remarque's book: "Im Westen nichts Neues. Eine Täuschung" ("All Quiet on the Western Front. An illusion") — which I chanced upon during my college years. Few years later, I'm reminded of Scheld as Netflix releases xeir adaptation, and before some retarded newfag gets triggered and cries shill: I pirated it and never paid shit, fuck your streaming sites you fucking zoomer, kill yourself.
Anyways I found a copy (ZVAB), but it was obviously written in Fraktur, and so I decided to render it in the antiqua style to practice my German and Fraktur reading and now I'm done and here's the link: https://files.catbox.moe/lzi7p9.pdf
It's in German, in the spirit of anon/Bernd I'd love to translate it in its entirety one day but that'll take considerable time and effort if I ever get around to it. In the meantime I'll be bringing you bits and pieces of the text along with my own reflections during the next few days. I hope anons will engage with this but even if this thread ends up really gay and just me I'll be certain that it's at least on-topic (thank dog the board's slow as balls). Of course there's the historical novelty, but other than that it's an interesting exercise in literary criticism. Once more and to be clear: Pic related is there to get your attention. Still I'll probably refer to the movie from time to time.
I had a lot of personal questions regarding how to make the text available and landed on a .pdf uploaded to catbox. This allows to play around with formatting easily which I'll get around to. If anyone knows a better way, please share. If there are krautfags around, I appreciate questions and comments.

[Anonymous No.21323597]

>>21323517
Okay I realise the 'Sperren'/rulers from the text didn't make it to the .pdf for some reason, anyways you get the point.

Now what did Scheld think? Well, Remarque's book was effective, but simple. Everything ultimately sinks into "grauen Elend", miserable tristesse, which does nothing to elevate the individual ("den Einzigen") and could even end up posing a danger to the democracy of the time.

His criticism relies on two central theses, one is admittedly entirely Scheld's own and he does little here to listen to Remarque. Scheld purports that a central characteristic of any reasonable [abgeklärten] democracy must be: The utmost justice [Gerechtigkeit] to every member of the people [Volksgenosse], that is, the representation of everyone as equals best as possible, which admittedly Remarque has never claimed, but Scheld implies that any book portraying the war should exhibit this virtue, "auch wenn man den Krieg verwirft als Massenmord oder als Resultat politischer D-ummheit", even if you discard the war as either mass murder or the result of political stupidity.

Before moving on, while not stemming from Remarque himself, Scheld's point isn't that far-fetched as being immanently caused by very common views in the literary criticism then as well as today. It's criticism and art 'for life', i.e., in service of it.

[Anonymous No.21323723]

His second unstated thesis points directly at Remarque's famous — and nebulous, "nebelhaft", — foreword: The book is neither supposed to be an "accusation" nor a "confession", and "dann bliebe nur übrig, daß es [the book] die nackte Wahrheit sein will, ohne speculative Absicht" (p. 4), the only remaining possibility is that the book wants to be the naked truth without speculative intent.

Perhaps Scheld doesn't explore every other option outside of "naked truth", but neither could he because Remarque asserts himself as a negation, except is a bad, ill-defined negation, Hegel's "schlechte Unendlichkeit". This exactly is one of Scheld's major grievances, namely that Paul Bäumer doesn't really represent anything. He's just there, and who here didn't find every single other character more interesting than Bäumer? I read somewhere that the panoramic viewpoint was commonly accepted as the least engaging, and so it is here: Paul Bäumer is just passing by.

[Anonymous No.21323808]

In trying to align Scheld with literary period and/or genre, I realised there are commonalities between the New Objectivity of early 20th century German literature and Hemingway's iceberg technique: "Es wird zu viel gesagt und aufgezählt, zu wenig gestaltet", Scheld wrote around 1929, that is, too much is said and accounted, not enough is shaped, formed, gestalted.

The book is effective, Scheld admits, but only because of the pervasive, ideological [weltanschaulich] half-hearted measures [Halbheiten] and worrying malice [bedenkliche Bosheiten] which the book contains (p. 6).

"A whimpering woman sees deplorable conditions everywhere, a vain individual feels superiority everywhere, a jealous one sees everything shrouded in hate", ein weinerliches Weib sieht natürlich überall nur beklagenswerte Zustände, ein Eifersüchtiger wittert boshaft überall Ueberlegenheit, eine neidische Kreatur sieht alles nur mit haßumnebeltem Bild. Nur der gesunde Mensch ist fähig zur Gerechtigkeit

[Anonymous No.21323900]

>>21323723
Forgot: "Only the healthy [gesund] man is capable of justice" (p. 4), but Remarque is "one-dimensional and worrying, problematic [bedenklich]".

In other words it's about fairness, even to the First World War, and every reader should be able to see the truth in the general sentiment that Remarque's book is very, very bleak. Outside of Paul Bäumer's own group of comrades, he encounters mostly scum, unless it's his dying mother, of course. If you've delved deeper into this issue, as an example, the boot camp is an absolute cliché of Prussian military management whereas actual military service was more likely just as boring and old-fashioned but a lot less malicious than what Remarque says, indeed the Himmelstoß character approaches comedy as a model of an evil bastard, "Musterschweinhund" (p. 14).

[Anonymous No.21324043]

>>21323900
You might excuse this as artistic liberty, but this is not allowed according to Scheld's criteria. It's perfectly alright to show the horrors of war, but then you ought to show its other sides, and it's entirely alright to show the horrors of war as entirely horrific, but then it needs to have a purpose.

The book "All Quiet..." lacks that which people want to see in it, for example the overwhelming creative personality of a Tolstoi. The book is with bundled together with great skill and with its instinct for the penchants of the times, but it lacks the holy spirit, which also has to stand behind every accusation. And the book is intended as an accusation, even if Remarque denies it. But who does it accuse? The Kaiser and the system? Civil society? The church? God? The author avoids an exact target". The basic error is that he places this colourless Bäumer in the centre, this hermaphroditic soul".

"Dem Buche 'Im Westen nichts Neues' fehlt, um das zu sein, was man aus ihm machen will, die überragende Schöpferpersönlichkeit etwa eines Tolstoi. Das Buch ist mit großem Geschick und mit seinem Instinkt für die Bedürfnisse der Zeit zusammengetüftelt, aber ihm fehlt der heilige Geist, der auch hinter einer Anklage stehen muß. Und eine Anklage soll das Buch sein, auch wenn Remarque es ausdrücklich ableugnet. Aber, wen klagt das Buch an? Den Kaiser und sein System? — Die bürgerliche Gesellschaft? — Die Kirche? — Gott? — Einem bestimmten Angriffsziel weicht der Verfasser aus. — Der Grundfehler besteht darin, daß er diesen farblosen Bäumer in den Mittelpunkt stellt, diese zwitterhafte Seele. Viele Episoden um Bäumer herum sind gut, aber das Buch hat kein Herz. Diese recht guten Episoden sind um einen weltanschaulichen Hohlraum gruppiert."

[Anonymous No.21324053]

>>21324043
Again I forgot: "Many episodes centred around Bäumer are good, but the book has no heart. These properly sound episodes are centred around an ideological void."

[Anonymous No.21324899]

Last bump before going to bed.

The Netlix adaptation adapts all the worst part, all the one-sidedness of the book while adding nothing new and even removing the few parts that had opportunity to make it good, namely the boot camp and Bäumer's leave to visit his sick mother and sick home town. It's better or at least different from US war movies/shows like Top Gun or Generation Kill in that it doesn't tell you to enlist, that's because it's made by Germans and hence you get flagellation instead. It's still war porn, but on the other side of the spectrum, it's a spectacle and litany of suffering, and if the thread is up by the time I wake I will expand on this point.

[Anonymous No.21325032]

>>21323597
Fpbp