Points Summer Book Club

I totally agree; the loss of hope is the worst loss of all, because there's nothing beyond that. It's easy to see why Paul and his buddies come to view the whole world as existing within the sphere of their comradeship. They can count on or trust nothing outside that circle. We talk about the "camaraderie" of sports teams and such, but it can be nothing like the "band of brothers" mentality that Remarque is writing about.

We haven't talked about Kemmerich yet, but he's very central to this first chapter--19 years old and dying. It could be any of them, and in his presence they can't deny that death is already within him, that life is disappearing before their very eyes:

"He looks ghastly, yellow and wan. In his face there are already the strained lines that we know so well, we have seen them now hundreds of times. They are not so much lines as marks. Under the skin the life no longer pulses, it has already pressed out the boundaries of the body. Death is working through from within. It already has command in the eyes. Here lies our comrade, Kemmerich, who a little while ago was roasting horse flesh with us and squatting in the shell-holes. He it is still and yet it is not he any longer."

This might be thought sentimental were it not for the business about the boots--which Muller needs and wants as a practical matter in spite of the fact that his friend and comrade must die in order for him to get them. It's an anguishing situation of which Paul alone, as narrator, seems fully aware.