摘要
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time--with an Oscar-winning film adaptation now streaming on Netflix.
"[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank."-- The New York Times Book Review
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . .
This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.
Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.
著者加注
Erich Maria Remarque was born Erich Paul Remark on June 22, 1898 in Germany. He was drafted into the German Army at the age of 18. He was assigned to the Western Front and later moved to the 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment. He was wounded by shrapnel in the left leg, right arm and neck, and was moved to an army hospital in Germany where he spent the rest of the war. After the war, he continued his teacher training and became a primary school teacher. He also began pursuing his writing career. He started writing essays and poems and his first novel, The Dream Room. When he published All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque changed his middle name in memory of his mother and reverted to the earlier spelling of the family name. The original family name, Remarque, had been changed to Remark by his grandfather in the 19th century.
All Quiet on the Western Front was written in 1927, but Remarque was unable to find a publisher. The novel was published in 1929 and described the experiences of German soldiers during World War 1. His other works include: Station at the Horizon, The Road Back, Three Comrades, Flotsam, and Shadows in Paradise. Erich Remarque died in 1958 of heart collapse brought on byan aneurysm.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Guardian 书评
Does the selection in my local library - predominantly Agatha Christie and books about the two world wars - reflect the reading preferences of its audio customers, I wonder - or their age? Probably the latter since a lot of them are still on cassette which, until this new Hachette edition of Remarque's classic German novel came out, was all you could get. Eighty years after it was first published, it is still the definitive book about not just the Great War but all wars. Remarque's descriptions of the horror and hopelessness of war have been compared to the poems of Wilfred Owen. This is his narrator, 19-year-old Private Paul Baumer, describing the aftermath of a frontline attack in which 118 of B Company's 150 soldiers have been killed. "The tension has worn us out. It is a deadly tension that feels as if a jagged knife blade has been scraped along the spine. Our legs won't function, our hands are trembling and our bodies are like thin membranes stretched over barely repressed madness, holding in what would otherwise be an unrestrained outburst of endless screams." In the 18 months after its publication it sold 2.5m copies in 25 languages, but was later banned and burned by the Nazis. I'm not sure if it's the way the narrator tells it or the way Tom Lawrence reads it that makes it so gut-wrenchingly sad. One by one the small group of schoolfriends Paul joined up with and who have become closer than his family disappear or die. Birdsong, Sunset Song, Regeneration, Goodbye to All That, How Many Miles to Babylon? - there are so many memorable novels about the first world war, but if I had to choose just one, this would have to be it. - Sue Arnold Does the selection in my local library - predominantly Agatha Christie and books about the two world wars - reflect the reading preferences of its audio customers, I wonder - or their age? Probably the latter since a lot of them are still on cassette which, until this new Hachette edition of Remarque's classic German novel came out, was all you could get. Eighty years after it was first published, it is still the definitive book about not just the Great War but all wars. - Sue Arnold.
摘录
One WE ARE AT REST five miles behind the front. Yesterday we were relieved, and now our bellies are full of beef and haricot beans. We are satisfied and at peace. Each man has another mess-tin full for the evening; and, what is more, there is a double ration of sausage and bread. That puts a man in fine trim. We have not had such luck as this for a long time. The cook with his carroty head is begging us to eat; he beckons with his ladle to every one that passes, and spoons him out a great dollop. He does not see how he can empty his stew-pot in time for coffee. Tjaden and Müller have produced two washbasins and had them filled up to the brim as a reserve. In Tjaden this is voracity, in Müller it is foresight. Where Tjaden puts it all is a mystery, for he is and always will be as thin as a rake. What's more important still is the issue of a double ration of smokes. Ten cigars, twenty cigarettes, and two quids of chew per man; now that is decent. I have exchanged my chewing tobacco with Katczinsky for his cigarettes, which means I have forty altogether. That's enough for a day. It is true we have no right to this windfall. The Prussian is not so generous. We have only a miscalculation to thank for it. "Fourteen days ago we had to go up and relieve the front line. It was fairly quiet on our sector, so the quartermaster who remained in the rear had requisitioned the usual quantity of rations and provided for the full company of one hundred and fifty men. But on the last day an astonishing number of English heavies opened up on us with high-explosive, drumming ceaselessly on our position, so that we suffered severely and came back only eighty strong. Last night we moved back and settled down to get a good sleep for once: Katczinsky is right when he says it would not be such a bad war if only one could get a little more sleep. In the line we have had next to none, and fourteen days is a long time at one stretch. It was noon before the first of us crawled out of our quarters. Half an hour later every man had his mess-tin and we gathered at the cook-house, which smelt greasy and nourishing. At the head of the queue of course were the hungriest--little Albert Kropp, the clearest thinker among us and therefore only a lance-corporal; Müller, who still carries his school textbooks with him, dreams of examinations, and during a bombardment mutters propositions in physics; Leer, who wears a full beard and has a preference for the girls from officers' brothels. He swears that they are obliged by an army order to wear silk chemises and to bathe before entertaining guests of the rank of captain and upwards. And as the fourth, myself, Paul Bäumer. All four are nineteen years of age, and all four joined up from the same class as volunteers for the war. Close behind us were our friends: Tjaden, a skinny locksmith of our own age, the biggest eater of the company. He sits down to eat as thin as a grasshopper and gets up as big as a bug in the family way; Haie Westhus, of the same age, a peat-digger, who can easily hold a ration-loaf in his hand and say: Guess what I've got in my fist; then Detering, a peasant, who thinks of nothing but his farm-yard and his wife; and finally Stanislaus Katczinsky, the leader of our group, shrewd, cunning, and hard-bitten, forty years of age, with a face of the soil, blue eyes, bent shoulders, and a remarkable nose for dirty weather, good food, and soft jobs. Our gang formed the head of the queue before the cookhouse. We were growing impatient, for the cook paid no attention to us. Finally Katczinsky called to him: "Say, Heinrich, open up the soup-kitchen. Anyone can see the beans are done." He shook his head sleepily: "You must all be there first." Tjaden grinned: "We are all here." The sergeant-cook still took no notice. "That may do for you," he said. "But where are the others?" "They won't be fed by you to-day. They're either in the dressing-station or pushing up daisies." The cook was quite disconcerted as the facts dawned on him. He was staggered. "And I have cooked for one hundred and fifty men----" Kropp poked him in the ribs. "Then for once we'll have enough. Come on, begin!" Suddenly a vision came over Tjaden. His sharp, mousy features began to shine, his eyes grew small with cunning, his jaws twitched, and he whispered hoarsely: "Man! then you've got bread for one hundred and fifty men too, eh?" The sergeant-cook nodded absent-minded, and bewildered. Tjaden seized him by the tunic. "And sausage?" Ginger nodded again. Tjaden's chaps quivered. "Tobacco too?" "Yes, everything." Tjaden beamed: "What a bean-feast! That's all for us! Each man gets--wait a bit--yes, practically two issues." Then Ginger stirred himself and said: "That won't do." We got excited and began to crowd around. "Why won't that do, you old carrot?" demanded Katczinsky. "Eighty men can't have what is meant for a hundred and fifty." "We'll soon show you," growled Müller. "I don't care about the stew, but I can only issue rations for eighty men," persisted Ginger. Katczinsky got angry. "You might be generous for once. You haven't drawn food for eighty men. You've drawn it for the Second Company. Good. Let's have it then. We are the Second Company." We began to jostle the fellow. No one felt kindly toward him, for it was his fault that the food often came up to us in the line too late and cold. Under shellfire he wouldn't bring his kitchen up near enough, so that our soup-carriers had to go much farther than those of the other companies. Now Bulcke of the First Company is a much better fellow. He is as fat as a hamster in winter, but he trundles his pots when it comes to that right up to the very front-line. We were in just the right mood, and there would certainly have been a dust-up if our company commander had not appeared. He informed himself of the dispute, and only remarked: "Yes, we did have heavy losses yesterday." He glanced into the dixie. "The beans look good." Ginger nodded. "Cooked with meat and fat." The lieutenant looked at us. He knew what we were thinking. And he knew many other things too, because he came to the company as a non-com. and was promoted from the ranks. He lifted the lid from the dixie again and sniffed. Then passing on he said: "Bring me a plate full. Serve out all the rations. We can do with them." Ginger looked sheepish as Tjaden danced round him. "It doesn't cost you anything! Anyone would think the quartermaster's store belonged to him! And now get on with you, you old blubber-sticker, and don't you miscount either." "You be hanged!" spat out Ginger. When things get beyond him he throws up the sponge altogether; he just goes to pieces. And as if to show that all things were equal to him, of his own free will he issued in addition half a pound of synthetic honey to each man. Excerpted from All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Erich-Maria Remarque All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
