Erich Maria Remarque is one of the most widely read authors of the “lost generation” in the post-Soviet space. He is put on a par with Hemingway and Aldington.
On all his work lies a trace of the tragic events of the life of the writer himself - above all, participation in the First World War.
Remarque and war
The normal course of life of young Erich interrupted the beginning of the First World War. Through the efforts of the media in the public mind, there was an idea of only a world-wide massacre as a fair campaign against evil.
Remarque was called to the front in 1916. In 1917, the future writer was seriously injured. He spent the rest of the war in the hospital.
The defeat of Germany and the ensuing harsh conditions affected the fate of Remarque. To survive, he tried dozens of different professions. The writer even had to work as a seller of tombstones.
Remarque's first novel was released in 1920. This is only the source from which all subsequent works of Remarque originate. The list of them is very numerous. Erich Maria became known in Germany as a melancholy artist depicting a war with true and gloomy colors.
Remarque's first novel
At what point is it worth starting to count the works of Remarque? The list opens with a 1920 novel titled Shelter of Dreams. Oddly enough, in this book there is not a word about war. But it is filled with allusions from the work of German classics, thoughts about the value of love and its true essence.
The background for the development of the plot is the house of a provincial artist, in which young people find shelter. They are naive and pure in their simplicity. The writer talks about the first love experiences, betrayals and quarrels.
Critics did not appreciate the debut of the young author. He was called too sentimental and pathos. Because of this reaction, Remarque was embarrassed in his first work in his mature years.
Lost work
Because of the failure with the first novel, Remarque never published the book "Gam" written in 1924. In this work, the young author raised gender issues, making the main character a strong-willed woman.
The novel "Gam" is forgotten when they list the best works of Remarque. The list remains without this interesting work, which in our days remains relevant and provokes discussion questions.
“Station on the horizon”
Few even of those people who constantly read Remarque's novels will fill up the list of works with this book. “Station on the horizon” is one of the most “anti-Remark” works of this German writer.
The protagonist of the novel is a typical representative of the golden youth. Kai Yun, beautiful and like girls. He is a typical person-transcatipole: a young man is not attached to material conditions, nor to people, nor to things. At heart he still dreams of a quiet life, peace of mind. But this desire is suppressed by a daily storm of bright events.
The action of the book takes place around endless car racing against the background of a carefree life of the upper classes of society.
“On the Western Front Without Change” - Requiem for a Lost Generation
Remarque is not known for books about aristocrats. The list of books and works on the tragedy of the lost generation in the bibliography of the writer begins precisely with the novel “On the Western Front without Change” published in 1929.
The author himself in the preface indicates that this book will not be either an accusation or a confession - this is the fate of the entire “lost generation”, expressed in one novel.
The main characters are young men torn from ordinary life. War does not spare them: patriotic illusions are quickly replaced by cruel disappointment. Even those guys who were not touched by shells, the militaristic machine crippled spiritually. Many could not find a place in their peaceful life.
“On the Western Front without Change” came into conflict with cheers-patriotic works that filled the bookstores of the Weimar Republic. During the reign of the Nazis, this book was banned.
"Return"
After the overwhelming success of the novel “On the Western Front without Change”, Remarque did not stop creating the work. The list of incredibly moving books about the fate of the lost generation we will continue with the novel “Return”.
The war is drawing to a close. Unrest engulfs the soldier: they say that a revolution happened in Berlin. But the main characters do not seem to care about politics at all. They only want to return home as soon as possible. After many years spent at the front, it is difficult for young people to leave the trenches ...
Overwhelmed by unrest, the country does not meet the "heroes" affably. How do they now build their lives on the ruins of a ruined empire?
Critics met this book in different ways: they admired its humanistic pathos, others scolded for insufficiently revealing the political situation in Germany. Nationalists violently disliked this work, seeing it as an evil pamphlet on heroic soldiers.
"Three comrades"
The acquaintance of our readers with this writer often begins with the novel Three Comrades. People delight in vain: what amazingly subtle Erich Maria Remarque wrote the work! We continue the list of books with this incredibly sad and touching book.
Events unfold in pre-fascist Germany. In all its ugliness, we are faced with a society in deep crisis. But even in such darkness, there is a place for true feelings - the selfless friendship of front-line friends and selfless love.
The main characters of the book survived the war. To survive in peacetime, they open a car repair shop. Time is testing their character and principles for strength. In Germany, this book never came out. Remarque began work on this work in 1933, finished writing in 1936. For the first time, “Three Comrades” was released in Denmark.
"Love thy neighbour"
This ended the "republican" works of Erich Remarque. The list will continue with a book that tells of a different, more cruel and barbaric time.
Who does not know this main postulate of our civilization: “Love your neighbor”? The Nazis questioned altruism, replacing it with ruthless competition in all areas of life.
The novel “Love your neighbor” will introduce us to the world of German emigrants who are forced to hide from the Nazi regime. What happened to their lives outside their long-suffering homeland? They starve and freeze in the streets, often left homeless. They are always haunted by thoughts of loved ones who have been “re-educated” in concentration camps.
“Is it possible to remain a highly moral person in such conditions?” - such a question poses Remarque. Each reader finds the answer to himself.
"Triumphal Arch"
Do not count the works of books by Erich Maria Remarque written on this topic. The list of “refugee literature” continues with the novel “Arc de Triomphe”. The main character is an emigrant, forced to hide in Paris (where the attraction indicated in the title is located)
Ravik survived imprisonment in a concentration camp - torture, beating and humiliation. Once he chose the meaning of life - to save people from disease. He considers the murder of the Gestapo to be no less useful.
The spark of life
Now Remarque is interested in events unfolding at the very end of the war. The "spark of life" replenishes the anti-fascist works of Remarque, the list is becoming more and more full and voluminous.
Now in the spotlight is one of the terrible concentration camps at the end of the war. The writer himself has never been in a concentration camp. He made all descriptions according to eyewitnesses.
The central character was once the editor of a liberal newspaper, an objectionable brutal Nazi dictatorship. They tried to break it, placing it in inhuman conditions and putting it on the brink of existence. The prisoner did not give up and now feels the imminent collapse of the German war machine.
Remarque said that he created this work in memory of his sister, who was beheaded by the Nazis in 1943.
"Time to live and time to die"
Remarque in his novel "Time to Live and Time to Die" impartially analyzes the psychology of a German soldier. The army in 1943 was defeated. The Germans are retreating to the west. The protagonist is well aware that for him now is only "time to die." Is there really a place to live in this beautiful world?
The soldier receives a 3-day vacation and visits his parents in the hope of seeing a flowering life in the city of childhood at least. But reality brutally opens his eyes to obvious things. Every day, the Germans, who once expanded their living space, suffer shelling and die for the illusory ideas of Nazism. "Time to live" has not yet arrived.
This book enriches the philosophical considerations of the work of Remarque. The list of anti-fascist, anti-militarist literature does not end there.
"Black obelisk"
The novel "Black Obelisk" brings us back to the 1920s - a time of devastation and crisis for Germany. Looking back, Remarque realizes that it was precisely at this time that Nazism arose, aggravating the suffering of his country.
The main character, trying to find his place in life, serves in a company manufacturing tombstones. At the same time, he is trying to find the meaning of his life in a meaninglessly cruel world.
“Life on loan”
Trying to diversify the theme of his works, Remarque addresses the theme of deadly diseases. As in the situation with anti-war books, the main character is placed here in a border situation. She is well aware that death is already knocking on the door. In order not to hear her approach, the heroine wants to spend the last days brightly and intensively. This helps her race car driver Clarefe.
"Night in Lisbon"
Remarque again addresses the painful topic of German emigration in the novel Night in Lisbon.
The main character has been wandering around Europe for five years now. Finally, luck smiled at him and he found his beloved wife. But it seems not for long. He cannot find tickets for a flight from Lisbon. By the will of fate, he meets a stranger who agrees to give him two tickets for the ship for free. There is one condition - he must spend the whole night with a stranger and listen to his complicated story.
Shadows in Paradise
Shadows in Paradise is a work about immigrants from Germany who managed to get to their paradise - America. Remarque talks about their fate. For some, the United States has become a new homeland. They were greeted joyfully and given the chance to build life from scratch. Other refugees were cruelly disappointed in paradise, becoming only silent shadows in the Eden invented by themselves.
"Promised land"
This is what the later revised text of Shadows in Paradise is called. During his lifetime, this work was not published. It was called the Promised Land. Under this heading, the book was released only in 1998.
The novels "Shadows in Paradise" and "Promised Land" are not customary to share. This is the same storyline. The latest version was more processed by editors, many unnecessary (in their opinion) fragments were thrown out of it.