• b-facebook
  • Twitter Round
  • Instagram Black Round
  • Tumblr Black Round
  • SoundCloud Black Round

This is War! (Part 2)

January 29, 2015

|

Phillip Trey

Last week I discussed the Literary Arts’ Delve Readers Seminar This is War!, and how the exhibit at the Portland Art Museum incorporated the novels we were reading. This week, I’ll move into the literature portion of what our group discussed. Over the course of the six-week seminar we read and discussed Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

 

 

All Quiet on the Western Front is a timeless novel. Remarque conceals the character’s position of rank and loyalties, but as the reader continues along, it's revealed that the narrator and main character, Paul, is a lower ranking German solider. Remarque by choosing to do this, is positioning Paul as a human being, garnering sympathy for the main character and his compatriots first. When I imagine an Englishman reading this novel fresh from the war, and finding themselves sympathizing with the enemy, I think this ability to do is a valuable trait to have. For instance, in the recent Charlie Hebdo attacks, and the backlash towards the Muslim population of France. Putting a human face on our enemies is a lasting way to question one's resolve, and to question who the real antagonists are. 

 

 

The beauty and tragedy in the novel unfolds in the lives of these soldiers, which have been formatted by conflict. The soldiers, with little life experience prior to the war, It’s understood in the book that if they were to survive, their youth would have been spent in pain, misery, and mortality. They would return home to learn that they could not function in society. As Remarque mentions in the book, the soldier's “knowledge of life is limited to death” (p. 264).

 

In Remarque’s novel there is a scene where Paul and another soldier are admiring a color poster of a beautiful woman. It is striking to them to see beauty in their torn apart world. It is also important to note that the admiration of the poster is one of the very few positive portrayals of women in the novel, largely relaying them as sexual props or feeble family members. Even, in the case of the poster, it is an idolization and not a reality. When I visited the Portland Art Museum for Delve, I was able to view the works of Otto Dix, Robert Bonfils, Kathe Kollwitz, and more. I read the novel, read the scene, and know what the style of the poster must have looked like in real life because of the Delve Readers Seminar field trips to the Portland Art Museum.

 

 

A Farewell to Arms is a war novel like All Quiet on the Western Front in that it follows a soldier in various struggles and through some usual encounters of war ­– battle, recovery, temptation – but unlike Remarque, Hemingway’s main character is largely disinterested and emotionally removed from the war. Most of the action happens to the side characters, with the main character almost seeming to play an ambivalent witness to the events surrounding him.

 

Despite Hemingway’s uncomplicated protagonist, the novel does complicate and challenge the idea of what a hero is and even what an anti-hero might be. He does this by shrouding the main character of Henry in a love story. As opposed to the women of the brothels and fraternal love between the soldiers in Remarque’s novel, Hemingway introduces a delightfully morose and complex female nurse by the name of Catherine, who quickly becomes Henry’s only concern in life besides alcohol. I won’t ruin the ending, but the development of their relationship is a wonderful foreground to the spoils of war. It is an attempt to stay human and connected to those around you when too many are dying and suffering, while concurrently becoming numb to those affects.

 

 

I truly enjoyed the experience of reading these novels in a setting surrounded by art that was inspired by the war, much the same way the novels were inspired. It was a unique experience to picture the war torn environments, and to see them in realistic and exaggerated portrayals in the museum. These artists survived tragedy and created lasting memories for us to view long after they are gone, and for that I am thankful.

 

Stay Backwords,

 

Phillip Trey

Tags:

literature

lit

Please reload

Featured Posts

Spice and Rain

October 9, 2019

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

August 7, 2019

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

October 9, 2019

1/5
Please reload

Recent Posts

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

October 9, 2019

Spice and Rain

October 9, 2019

Traveling with Less

September 11, 2019

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

September 11, 2019

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

August 7, 2019

Driving Through a Derecho, or, Toto, We Are Unfortunately Still in Kansas

August 7, 2019

A Brown Betty and a Family Pothole: Thieves and Potters

July 10, 2019

I Won't Call It Country: My Americana Kick

July 3, 2019

What Tony Hoagland Means to Me

May 1, 2019

Twenty Four Hours in Russell, New Zealand

April 3, 2019

Please reload

Search By Tags

Amy Webber

Art

Arundhati Roy

Asaf Kletter

BACKWORDS

BACKWORDS Art

BACKWORDS Music

BACKWORDS Performance

BACKWORDS Place

BACKWORDS Press

BACKWORDS press

BACKWORDSBlog

Backwords Literature

Backwords Press

Bianca Flores

Chad Valley

Crazy Ex Giirlfriend

Ernesto Pujol

Fall 2015 Issue

Gail Pasternack

Janice Worthen

Jeff Alessandrelli

Jonathan Van Ness

Laura Walker

Literature

Merry Clayton

Music

Paris

Pearl Griffin

Phillip Trey

Place

Pokemon Go

Rolling Stones

Sara Bareilles

Stephanie Adams-Santos

Tony Hoagland

art

backwords

backwords art

backwords blog

blog

candace kita

designers

elaine walker

geolocation data

ginger duncan

graphic designers

guest curator

interview

jennifer gurney

jenny m. chu

lgbt

lit

literature

los angeles

maria regine

maria regine cabbab

mary rechner

matthew d. kulisch

mel wells

music

nanette nielson

new zealand

noelle allen

origins

performance

phillip trey

place

poetry in fashion

portland

press

s.tieu

sara guest

spice girls

stacey kohut

w vandoren wheeler

wes solether

zach kano

Please reload

Follow Us
  • Facebook Black Round
  • Twitter Black Round
  • Instagram Black Round
  • Tumblr Black Round
  • SoundCloud Black Round
  • Google+ Black Round
  • Home

  • Blog

  • Press (2015-2017)

  • More

    Contact: backwordspress@gmail.com / © 2017 by BACKWORDS Press