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varian212 · 5 months ago

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{Books read from July 8 to July 13.}

Author's Name: Erich Maria Remarque

Number of Pages: 250

Summary:

War breaks out in Germany in 1914. Paul Bäumer and his classmates quickly enlist in the army to serve their fatherland. No sooner are they drafted than the first images from the battlefield show them the reality of war.

My favorite quotes:

“Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”

''It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men.''

(The word "queer" means here strange, unusual, or odd.)

''We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.''

''We had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.''

“Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child - why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang short, boy's trouser - it is such a little time ago, why is it over?”

Thoughts on It:

The scenes where Paul returns home on leave for a short time were the hardest for me. Paul knew the place so well, yet everything seemed strange and meaningless to him. The books he had spent so much time studying for school seemed like a joke after his experience in the war.

Back home,the desire of people, especially men, to know more about the war seemed annoying to him. He had to lie to his mother that things were fine in the war, that he was safe, and that they had enough food. When the reality was exactly the opposite, there were scenes where Paul and the other soldiers had to hide their food from rats, where they had to stay buried underground until the barrage of shells stopped (the sound of which was loud and painful—a technique often used in war to keep the enemy awake as long as possible, rendering them incapable of fighting).

I think the most horrifying thing about this book is how Paul, along with the other soldiers, are made to join the army under the pretense that they are the "golden generation" that will save Germany. Of course, an idiotic phrase said just to make as many boys as possible join the army. No one prepared them for what was to come, and no one told them that they might not return home.

Next is a story about the author of the book, not a very funny one; you can skip to the next book title - City of Thieves.

Here is the quote from the beginning of the novel:

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”

Erich Maria Remarque personally met Adolf Hitler in World War I, where both fought on the German side. Over time, it is said that their relationship (which was almost nonexistent, with them exchanging only a few words) fell apart.

The war ended, and Erich Maria Remarque returned to writing. He wrote his first book, which was not very successful (titled The Dream Room). He did not become famous until 1929, after his book All Quiet on the Western Front immediately caught the public's attention with many copies sold.

What further changed the situation was an adaptation of the novel, the first adaptation (there are now three films), released in 1930.

After this first adaptation, the authorities heard about the novel, and of course, they did not like it. Remarque's work presented exactly what they were trying to hide—that war is grotesque, irrelevant to ordinary people, and that once you leave the war (if you are lucky enough to do so), your life will never return to what it was.

Remember, this was 1930, nine years before the start of World War II.

By 1933, the Nazi regime made it a national crime to own a copy of All Quiet on the Western Front. All copies had to be handed over to the authorities.

Joseph Goebbels (chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and later Reich Minister of Propaganda) along with Hitler planned to go to Erich's house and kill him, considering him and his works a "threat to the ideology of the entire Nazi Party."

Fortunately, Erich was warned by his acquaintances of this murder attempt and left for the United States via Switzerland in 1939. The Nazis were not happy when they found out. But Erich lived his life continuing to write books, far from his homeland. The saddest part of this story is what happened to his younger sister, who remained in Germany.

Elfriede Scholz had to answer for her crimes as well as her brother's. Her crimes consisted of being overheard by her landlord saying that the Nazi-driven war was a lost cause, and his for writing this book.

Elfriede was judged and found guilty, and on December 16, 1943, she was beheaded, just four years after Remarque’s departure from Germany.

Erich did not know about his younger sister's death until after the war. He would dedicate his 1952 novel Spark of Life to her. The dedication was omitted in the German version of the book, reportedly because he was still seen as a traitor by some Germans.

I think the story behind this book makes it a million times more powerful, and I am sorry I did not give the book a chance until now.

Please give it a try, I don't think you'll regret it! And, of course, the latest adaptation of the film (2022) can be seen on Netflix, almost as good as the book.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Animal,death,death,gore,hospitalization,surgery,violence,war.

Author's Name: David Benioff

Number of Pages: 258

Sumamry:

The plot revolves around two Russian youths; a looter and a deserter. Both crimes have the death penalty, but a high ranking colonel makes them an offer. The city is starving, but he wants a dozen eggs to make a cake. If the two of them can find these within 72 hours, he'll spare their lives.

My favorite quotes:

''You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.''

“I never understood people who said their greatest fear was public speaking, or spiders, or any of the other minor terrors. How could you fear anything more than death? Everything else offered moments of escape: a paralyzed man could still read Dickens; a man in the grips of dementia might have flashes of the must absurd beauty.”

“You don't like the girl. You don't know what color eyes she has, you don't like her.”

“You're a writer. Make it up.

-What's the good news?

-Pardon?

-You said the bad news is we're going the wrong way.

-There isn't any good news. Just because there's bad news doesn't mean there's good news, too.”

“Those words you want to say right now? Don't say them.' He smiled and cuffed my cheek with something close to real affection. 'And that, my friend, is the secret to living a long life'.”

Thoughts on It:

I know some of you might not have high expectations just because it's a book written by the guy who also did Game of Thrones. That's what I thought too, until I read it and found that the atmosphere and characters he created are worth reading about and you'll find them interesting.

Kolya, who is somewhat of a playboy, a semi-intellectual from the Soviet Union, and Lev, the protagonist, are set to spend 2 days together searching for eggs so that one of the leaders can make a cake for his daughter's wedding. (This creates a discrepancy, a sort of "let them eat cake" irony, because people are starving to death, yet this leader is thinking about a cake to please his daughter.)

Kolya and Lev form an iconic duo, and finding eggs should be easy under normal circumstances. However, not in Leningrad, amidst a military conflict.

By the way, to be honest, I thought until the end that these guys would develop a romantic relationship. Things were becoming quite sus between them.

Although this book and All Quiet on the Western Front have much in common, City of Thieves seemed to me to be a couple of notches lighter than All Quiet On The Western Front.

I remember when I read All Quiet On The Western Front, I had that initial feeling where I thought about how horrifying it would be for me to go through what the protagonist had experienced. Throughout the book, there are only one or two happier moments, although to say happy is an exaggeration.

All Quiet on the Western Front makes you feel powerless, it makes you believe that there is no hope left, that nothing is worth fighting for anymore.

In City of Thieves, although the atmosphere is equally brutal, equally grim, there are still some interesting moments that make you almost forget what kind of book you're reading.

I recommend reading All Quiet on the Western Front first, and then reading this one as a sort of solace.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Gun violence, Child death, Cannibalism, Blood, War, Sexual violence, Death, and Gore

Author's Name: Donna Tartt

Number of Pages: 771 pages

Summary:

Theodore Decker was 13 years old when his mother was killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The tragedy changes the course of his life, sending him on a stirring odyssey of grief and guilt, reinvention and redemption, and even love. Through it all, he holds on to one tangible piece of hope from that terrible day -- a painting of a tiny bird chained to its perch.

My favorite quotes:

“Every new event—everything I did for the rest of my life—would only separate us more and more: days she was no longer a part of, an ever-growing distance between us. Every single day for the rest of my life, she would only be further away.”

“We looked at each other. And it occurred to me that despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I’d liked Boris and felt happy around him from almost the moment I’d met him was that he was never afraid. You didn’t meet many people who moved freely through the world with such a vigorous contempt for it and at the same time such oddball and unthwartable faith in what, in childhood, he had liked to call “the Planet of Earth.”

“There had been nights in the desert where I was so sick with laughter, convulsed and doubled over with aching stomach for hours on end, I would happily have thrown myself in front of a car to make it stop.”

Thoughts on It:

At first read, I loved it immediately -I felt like each part of the book had its own vibe, completely different from the rest of the story. I enjoyed Theo's life in Las Vegas; it seemed so dream-ish and reminded me somewhat and only a little bit of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses.

Theo's character seems complex, easy to understand and relate to in some moments, but impossible in others. The way he suffered, how one moment in his life spent in the wrong room managed to drastically change his life. Some would call it destiny; I think it's something much scarier and surprising than that. I don't think I managed to fully identify with him, though. And I don't think I would do the same things he did in the book. Sometimes I think about how insignificant his life was, how he spent all these years obsessed with that painting.

I honestly think that Donna has a thing for obsessions, how they can take over your entire life, change you into someone else.

The relationship between him and Boris seemed a bit confusing, and in the end, I concluded that they were just two quite lonely people, two teenagers who needed each other when no adult was concerned about them. I liked Boris as a character; I liked how he was brought back, although his departure from the book was rather random.

I expected him to continue with Theo.

Poor Andy, though. Sometimes I read about characters and think how terrible it would be to be in their place. Andy was hurt by the thing he hated most - the irony of it all.

Another character I liked was Hobie. Reminding me of Harold Stein from A Little Life, Hobie falls into that category of super chill characters who help the main character heal, become better, even if with a small, almost insignificant fragment. I really think Hobie managed to make Theo's life better and was one of the few normal adults in the book.

Pippa, I don't have much to say about her. An okay character, although the interactions between her and Theo seemed cringy (I think because of Theo). I found it interesting that even though Theo grows up and is no longer the same 13-year-old boy from the beginning, his life seems not to have moved on. He still thinks about Pippa and has a connection to the ring he took from Hobie's partner, and most importantly, Theo continues to think about the painting all those years - as if Theo never left the explosion, and he relives it over and over.

Of course, there are a few things in the book that were a bit dragged out and made me give it only 3,5 stars. Some descriptions were too long and unnecessary, to the point where I forgot what was happening and had to go back a few pages.

Here I'm referring to everything except the description of the work Hobie,(and then Theo too) did. Reading all those descriptions reminded me of another book that you might like if you enjoyed this one, namely The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr. It's about a lost and found painting, about all the beautiful work of restoring them (take notes, Theodore Decker ).

On the other hand, I wish some aspects were explained more. There's that contrast again between the multitude of descriptions of insignificant things and the aspects the author doesn’t address but should.

For example, I would have liked the dynamic between Hobie and Welty to be discussed more, but I understand that the events are narrated from Theo's perspective, who is too preoccupied with his own dramas and experiences.

One scene that left me confused is this one;

“Tell Hobie to get out of the store,” he (Welty) said thickly.

In disbelief, I watched the blood trickling bright from the corner of his mouth. He’d loosened his tie by yanking at it; “here,” I said, reaching over to help, but he batted my hands away.

“He’s got to close the register and get out!” he rasped. “His father’s sending some guys to beat him up—”

-Page 44

Why is there no further mention of this throughout the book, and why doesn’t Theo tell Hobie what Welty told him, that his father had sent some boys to beat him up? I want to believe that maybe Welty was just in too much pain and not fully aware of what he was saying, maybe some flashbacks from the past?

Anyway,another issue I had with the book was the ending, which felt a bit too Hollywood movie-like for me.

I think it could have ended differently and better, without the final section of the book feeling like a Russian mafia x Depressed and obsessed after a painting boy fanfiction with the tag "dead dove do not eat" and "hurt/comfort."

The book seemed so perfect to me until then that I probably would have given it 5 stars (and so far, I've only given one book 5 stars in my entire life). I've seen other opinions saying they found it interesting, I couldn't swallow it.

I plan to wait a few years before reading the book again; I'm pretty sure my opinion will dramatically change, and this is just my immediate reaction to it all.

Overall, this book had the premise to be a masterpiece, but it turned out to be just a very good book.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Death,depression,drug abuse (heavy),suicidal thoughts,attempted suicide,terrorism

Author's Name: John Edward Williams

Number of Pages: 278

Summary :

The novel follows the life of William Stoner, his career as an academic teacher in literature, the relationship with his wife, Edith, the affair with his work colleague, Katherine, and his relationship with his daughter, Grace.

My favorite quotes :

"He carried this feeling of loss with him throughout the graduation exercises."

"She continued to talk, and after a while he began to hear what she was saying. Years later it was to occur to him that in that hour and a half on that December evening of their first extended time together, she told him more about herself than she ever told him again. And when it was over, he felt that they were strangers in a way that he had not thought they would be, and he knew that he was in love."

“He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.”

“He listened to his words fall as if from the mouth of another, and watched his father’s face, which received those words as a stone receives the repeated blows of a fist.”

“Because in the long run' Stoner said, 'it isn't Edith or even Grace, or the certainty of losing Grace, that keeps me here; it isn't the scandal or the hurt to you or me; it isn't the hardship we would have to go through, or even the loss of love we might have to face. It's simply the destruction of ourselves, of what we would do'.”

Thoughts on It:

You don’t need much information before starting the novel, only that it is good enough to deserve everyone’s attention.

The summary doesn’t quite do the book justice, it is simply about the life of Stoner, first a student, then a university professor. In essence, not much happens, and most scenes are predictable. I think this is what makes the book so good—it presents the life of a man. Not a very happy life, not much, but still a life.

Stoner's relationship with Edith, his wife, is complex and difficult to understand. Certain behaviors of Edith suggest she might suffer from some mental illnesses, but these are never addressed further in the book, likely due to the period in which the book is set (pre-WWI to a few years after WWII).

Their relationship seemed sad to me, one that no one would want to have. Stoner tried, I believe, to be a good husband and father. I’m not sure how well he succeeded, nor how much he actually tried.

If I were to recommend just one book out of these four, it would definitely be Stoner, as seen in the rating.

Although I just finished the book, I am sure I will reread it soon. Now I understand what people mean when they say they have a comfort book.

Trigger Warnings!!!

Themes of sexual violence, ableism and alcoholism

Moderate ones : Abandonment, War, Body shaming, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, and Gaslighting.

#books #what i read #long reads #writing #all quiet on the western front #paul bäumer #city of thieves #david benioff #the goldfinch #theo decker #stoner #john williams

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