A Time to Love and a Time to Die
- Author
- Erich Maria Remarque written by
- Publisher
- Minumsa | 2010-04-30 published
- Category
- Novel
- Book description
- A sad and beautiful love story drawn by Remarque, the master of anti-war novels...
The thought of wanting to write something after watching the film 'The Night Before the Wedding' lingered for a very long time. Well, since I saw the film on Sunday, counting Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed makes only four days though. In any case, The Night Before the Wedding was a film that required a lot of organizing of thoughts to write a piece about, so it was too hard to write something right away, and I finished reading this book—which I'd borrowed on Saturday, drawn by its title—in just a few days. Hmm... since I didn't read on Sunday and finished it reading only on Mon, Tue, Wed, even I find my own pace quite remarkable. I wonder if I've now reached a level where I can read through a book of a certain length quickly once I pick it up.
Getting to the main point, this book depicts the Russian front in the final stages of World War II and the interior of Germany, with 'Graeber,' one of the German soldiers during World War II, as the protagonist. In the case of the Germany / Russia front of World War II, the tide was decided through the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Leningrad, and in the end it turned into a Russian victory. Although there was a chance to launch a full attack on Stalingrad early in the war, the German army strangely slowed its advance. This ultimately became an opportunity that bought Russia time, and in the end Germany got a bitter taste from the city called 'Stalingrad,' which seemed possible to occupy, and gradually began to retreat. Remarque depicted the novel against the backdrop of this 'retreating Germany' front.
Remarque was a person who had experienced World War I and also experienced World War II to some degree (indirectly). Although when World War II came he eventually went into exile in the United States. For the sake of his personal safety. As a writer of war novels, the Nazi regime must have been unwelcome to him. Even if I were a power figure of the Nazi regime (I don't want to imagine this), Remarque could only be a very thorny presence. It's something anyone could predict—that a novel by a writer who became instantly famous with 'All Quiet on the Western Front' would have an enormous influence on society.
This book can be said to reveal the author's perspective through the 'figures' Graeber meets. First, there's a need to talk about 'Elizabeth,' whom he meets during his leave. Graeber, who reunites with 'Elizabeth'—who had attended the same school back when he lived in the town, long ago, before the war broke out—unconsciously comes to visit her house often. In the town where everything had turned to ruins, Graeber's heart ached as if it were being torn apart. Trying to find his way to his own house, in a town so broken and ruined that he couldn't even find a trace of the house, he must have felt tremendous emptiness, futility, and despair. But Elizabeth and her house were not like that. It was one of the few houses that remained relatively intact amid the war, and a 'familiar person.' That's why, through Elizabeth, Graeber fills the despair while feeling that he's recovering, little by little, the 'past' he had lost. This is somewhat similar for Elizabeth too. She begins to think of 'Graeber' as one of the few people she can meet without keeping her guard up, unlike with others. When the two first met, Elizabeth was tremendously guarded, but as the number of times they met gradually increased, the two grew closer. Eventually the two become lovers, spending time having a fine meal at a hotel restaurant and spending quiet time at Elizabeth's house. Graeber, who had been a soldier out at the front, asks Elizabeth to marry him, and a few days after the marriage his leave ends and Graeber returns to the battlefield. In doing so, Graeber chose Elizabeth as something to support him, but he comes to realize that it instead causes him twice the pain.
Before they part, Elizabeth tells Graeber she wants to have his 'child,' saying the following.
"What would become of things if only barbaric people had children?"
It's an extremely hope-filled remark. I think Elizabeth's single remark, coming like a light in the darkness, greatly moved Graeber's heart. Word by word.
That's why Elizabeth can be explained as a 'flame'-like presence to Graeber amid the ruins of war. Of course, through Teacher Pohlmann or the wounded soldiers, one could say Graeber's acquaintances are not only Elizabeth, but Graeber spends the most time with Elizabeth during his leave. Even falling asleep on the first day amid the ruins—to Graeber, who has no house and sleeps on the roadside, 'Elizabeth' seems to have come as a stable resting place and a trustworthy person. The fact that Graeber comes to feel the emotion of 'love' through her seems most largely due to the environmental aspect: that Elizabeth, being a woman, could only have appeared to Graeber as an attractive person. Also, she, who cries out that 'the past can't be helped,' bears a different disposition from Graeber too. Graeber had a strong desire to revive the past. Because he'd been at the front for so long, his memory of his 'intact past' was strong. But she was different. She felt it while watching her own town collapse. That it can't be turned back. It was after she'd realized she had to start anew.
The second figure is Pohlmann. Teacher Pohlmann—he was the teacher of Graeber's war comrade, and Graeber's teacher too. During the war, a comrade who was from the same hometown asked Graeber to be sure to pay his respects to Teacher Pohlmann if he went on leave, and so Graeber visits Teacher Pohlmann. Through the conversation between Graeber and Pohlmann, the author narrates his own thoughts about World War II at the time, and tells how meaningless and wrong this 'war' is.
"How can these things be reconciled as one? These books, these poetry collections, this philosophy, and the cruelty of the SS, the concentration camps, and the mass slaughter of innocent humans."
"It's not that they're reconciled. They simply coexist in the same era. If the people who wrote these books were alive now, most of them would have been dragged off to concentration camps."
"That would be so."
......
"I've thought a lot about you, Graeber. And I've pondered what you said recently too. But there is no answer." Pohlmann paused for a moment, then spoke again in a low voice. "Only one thing—there must be faith. Faith. Otherwise, what would be left for us?"
"Faith in what?"
"In God. And in the goodness within the human heart."
"Have you never doubted it, sir?" Graeber asked.
"Of course I have. Often. Otherwise, how could I hold faith?" the old man answered.
Through this conversation, the author expresses the figure of Graeber as one who wavers amid the various beliefs of the era. Graeber is having the kind of agonizing most like that of an 'ordinary person.' As much as Nazi Germany was a legitimately born regime, faith in that regime was unrivaled, but that soon led to madness and pulled the entire populace in an irreversible direction. That's why Graeber comes to agonize. Over whether the things that had existed before and a 'war' like the present are things that can coexist. Through this book, the author wanted to throw out this question. What is trustworthy in this present age. And as the answer he offers up 'religion.' Similar to when I read Anna Karenina, 'religion' seems like a very fine answer. Not a concept of some 'countermeasure,' but a belief one must always hold—that seems to be precisely 'Catholicism' in Europe.
The third figure is Josef. Pohlmann protects Josef at the risk of his own life, and because of this, Graeber, who comes to visit Teacher Pohlmann's house often, crosses paths with Josef a few times. Josef, knowing that Graeber is not someone trying to lock him up like the 'SS' or the 'Gestapo,' converses with him fairly intimately. Considering the backdrop of the time, when as a hunted person he could be captured at any moment, Josef could also be sent to a camp through Graeber, yet he fully trusts Graeber. He seems to have realized it through his conversations with Teacher Pohlmann. Graeber has a time of 'penitence' before this Josef.
......"That's right. I'm going back to fight so that the criminals hunting you can extend their power even longer. So that they can hold power long enough to arrest you and hang you."
Josef lightly expressed agreement and kept silent.
"I'm going because I'll be shot if I don't go back," Graeber said.
Josef did not answer.
"I'm going back because if I desert, they'll send my parents and wife to a concentration camp or kill them."
Josef still kept silent.
"I'm going. I know my reason is no reason at all, and yet it's the reason that millions put forward. Truly, we deserve your contempt!"
"Don't talk such nonsense," Josef said quietly.
Graeber looked at him without a word. He couldn't tell his true intent.
"No one is putting the word contempt on their lips," Josef said. "You only think so. Why is that so important to you? Do I despise Teacher Pohlmann? Should I despise the person who hides me every night at the risk of his life? Could I have survived without them? You really are naive!"
German society at the time, which could only act in a petit-bourgeois way—Graeber was just one of those petit-bourgeois. Through Graeber, Remarque depicted the heartbreaking reality of ordinary Germans at the time like this. Saying, 'I know what I'm saying makes no sense, but this is how I am right now!' As soon as Graeber finishes his leave and returns to the front, he realizes the front has retreated greatly, and once again realizes this war cannot be won. Still, what was humane about Graeber is that he didn't listen to Steinbrenner and spared the 'Russian prisoner.' Through Graeber sparing the Russian prisoner he'd captured, Remarque was realizing, by proxy, what he himself wanted to do.
It was my first time reading a war novel since Homage to Catalonia. Of course, it was hard to call Homage to Catalonia purely a 'novel.' Back then it was the 'Spanish Civil War,' which I didn't know well, and this time it was Germany versus Russia during World War II, whose course of the war I had at least read about. Being asked to recall again that time when people went around shouting 'Heil Hitler' cannot but be an agonizing thing for any writer. What's certain is that such a 'tragedy' must never happen again. In a situation where, to maintain the power of a group trying to kill someone, one could only protect one's own family and stand by while another family dies, Remarque pondered 'being humane' and, I think, put out this work.
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