Love and death
Rod's and Keven's reflections on how the novel affected them are very similar to mine, I must say. The first bombardment, in chapter 4, is rough, and then there's the quieter interlude of chapter 5, which includes Himmelstoss' arrival at the Front and Paul's and Kat's goose feast at the end.
Himmelstoss the outsider doesn't get it--yet. His relationship with the comrades is totally opposite to Paul's and Kat's, the beauty of which both Keven and Rod have noted: they talk little as they sit cooking the goose, but, to bring up Paul's words again from Rod's entry, "I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have." And then the words that Keven quoted: "I love him, his shoulder, his angular stooping figure."
This passage seems to me important because we've been wrestling with what the experience of war does to the soldiers at the Front and what they will take away if they survive. It led me to think of a trait Leslie Fiedler described (for the first time?) shortly after WWII as "homoeroticism," a deep non-sexual attraction that men can develop in crisis, going much deeper than what we think of as ordinary friendship. Fiedler was actually talking about Huck Finn and the slave Jim, when Huck gets separated from the raft and Jim thinks he may have drowned ("Come back to the raft agin, Huck honey"). In the Iliad, Homer describes something similar with the Greek word "philotes," a particular attachment known only among warriors in battle. Could we possibly think of such an attachment as an ambiguous "good" of war?
However we think of it, this kind of "male bonding" has an extended effect in chapter 6, which takes us to a new level of fighting--not only bombardment but the back-and-forth of infantry attack and counter-attack between Germans and French. For a few pages (beginning on 112 of my book), the intensity goes beyond anything previous: "We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down." They are "overwhelmed by this wave that bears us along, that fills us with forocity, turns us into thugs, into murderers, into God only knows what devils." In this madness, they even "have lost all feeling for one another."
Homer describes warriors going into battle by saying that "Ares the war god entered him." Is this what Paul is describing? Is this an even more distilled moment of war's worst impact--that both enemies and friends lose their identity and are replaced by an anonymous presence called Death? It sounds as if Paul is saying that war deprives a soldier not only of his life but of his status as a human before he dies.
But then.... By the end of the chapter, those who have survived the attack come together in that strange wordless unity again, as if cooking another goose, and become pitying teachers of the new recruits, in whom they in unison see themselves and who, in turn, "look upon us as gods that escape death many times."
Comments
The literature of the novel we are reading is beautiful in spite of the setting. An earlier comment someone made was that the writing was straight-foward and without frills. Yet, as we read through the book, the writing becomes more and more poetic and beautifully-phrased; however, now I know why it was one of the classics I had not read. War stories, ugh...
The non-sexual attraction passage that you refer to moved me, too. Where, except in the crisis of war, does one have the rare opportunity to be that close to another human being?
The camaradrie and bonding of those who serve in battle seem elusive and unlikely to have the same depth in other situations. More's the pity, although it seems to be part of the litany of answers to your provocative question from last Sunday's Points.
Posted by: Mitzi | June 23, 2007 01:26 PM
Homer's philotes and Ares came up a few times when I was reading chapters 5 and 6.
But, speaking of the humanity of the soldiers during the attacks, Paul seems to erase what is human so he can survive the back-and-forth of the fighting. The recruits, on the other hand, seem to become even more attached to their misery and don't fare quite as well.
But, after Himmelstos's first contact with the front, he becomes closer to Paul and Kat, and even Tjaden.
Philotes? Maybe not that far. But he does become much closer to the soldiers.
Posted by: Sterling Robertson | June 25, 2007 10:17 AM
We could do a sort of syllogism about this: Major premise-human intimacy is a good thing; Minor premise-there is no human relationship as intimate as that between comrades in war; Conclusion: therefore what? Not that war is a good thing but that the greatest of human intimacies is its offspring? This just seems to take to another level the idea that any good coming out of war is paradoxical. To go further: can one affirm that some good things come out of war but at the same time affirm that the world is better off without the good that is the specific offspring of war? Mitzi, you can tell I'm trying to confront the question you present (from the novel) more than once: what is the war good for?
Sterling, I agree that Himmelstoss doesn't reach the same level of male bonding as the others but that he somehow understands them now that he has had a taste of the fighting and even been discoverd to be temporarily a coward. It's interesting to me, though, that Himmelstoss joins the attack only on the command of an officer rather than on the roughing-up that Paul gives him.
Posted by: Larry Allums | June 25, 2007 02:28 PM
Larry, I took Himmelstoss's reaction as Remarque's commentary on a certain kind of German (Prussian) mentality: a mind incapable of significant moral reasoning on its own, but willing to leap without question into obeying an order from Authority. I don't think Remarque is arguing that Himmelstoss should have disobeyed the order, but rather he wanted to draw a portrait of a mindset of blind obedience that drew Germany (and other nations?) into the war.
On the second point, about the ways in which war can be morally redeemed: it really depends on the war, doesn't it? World War I is a worst-case example because there was no overriding moral victory there. But what if "All Quiet" had been written about World War II? Surely the suffering would have been just as intense, but at least soldiers on the Allied side would be able to claim a victory for morality over Nazism, yes? Similarly in the US Civil War. I suppose what I'm saying is that the suffering detailed in "All Quiet" is understood in context of a war of unprecedented destruction that served absolutely no moral end, only nationalism.
Paul Fussell's WW2 memoir "Doing Battle" strikes me as just about perfect in its moral stance. He recognizes that the Allied cause was just and necessary, but he doesn't try to excuse or sugar-coat the hideous evil that even fighting for a morally just cause entails.
Posted by: Rod Dreher | June 25, 2007 02:56 PM
Rod, I agree about Himmelstoss' Prussian mentality of blind obedience. I do think his stature rises, though, at the beginning of ch. 7, where we hear that he's brought Haie Westhus back wounded from the Front and does other positive things.
Your other point is a tough one--that there is no sense or context in which you can speak of redemption when you're talking about WWI. I want to hold out a little longer on that one.
Posted by: Larry Allums | June 25, 2007 06:36 PM
Larry, I like the syllogism that you presented. Had not done this kind of exercise in a long time. Probably didn't do it very well when I did. Your posting gave me a new way to think about my assumptions. I plan to try to work up my own syllogism about other opportunities for intense human intimacy.
Yes, I recognize and appreciate that you continue to confront the question at hand.
Rod, maybe I will try to syllogize your premise that some wars are just and necessary. Doubt I will change any hearts or minds, but I will always learn from and enjoy your postings and your editorials.
Posted by: Mitzi | June 25, 2007 10:48 PM