Shadows in Paradise - Erich Maria Remarque

Remarque is comparable to no one when it comes to the immigrant's soul. Being himself an immigrant from Germany and having been persecuted numerous times for his writings, he understands the immigrant's dilemma - a longing towards your country, whose people have turned into murderers, and a clear understanding that in order to live you have to flee this country.

Shadows in Paradise follows the life of several German immigrants in the US, who are trying to balance between the American dream and the German nightmare. They are Jews and Germans; they have been persecuted or they voluntarily left Germany; they love and hate their own country; they dream of coming back and they use every resource to blend in the US. They are Americans (or trying to become) and yet they are still Germans. They are in the US and in the same time their past haunts them and obstructs any chance of starting a normal life.

Among these shadows arrives Ros, a German who escaped the persecutions and travelled all around Europe to find a shelter in the US. His real name is unknown or long forgotten. In fact, names are among the few things that escape time, war, and the Nazis. They are like a legacy, a saving will making death look like a rescue - for the dead and for the living.

Upon arrival Ros attempts to blend into the American life. He finds a job as a consultant to a seller of paintings, he finds a home in a shady hotel, he meets old friends from Europe, and of course, he tragically falls in love. It seems that everything is in place to live like in a paradise in the US - a country that participates in the war but doesn't feel it in any way. Trading is flourishing and morals are inexistent, making it a perfect atmosphere to exploit, lie, deceit, and make money. Somewhere far away people are dying but in Hollywood the Americans are making a movie about Nazi Germany. Ros, being among the few who has been in a concentration camp, becomes a consultant. He is shocked by the difference between image and reality. American movies back then were not very much different than what they are now. They portrayed the bad guys as ultimately bad with no soul or compassion and the good guys as beautiful and perfect saints.

A traitor, a spy, and a victim, Ros tries to live normally but is constantly haunted by memories from the past. The persecutions, the hidings, the fear, and the deaths have left an eternal mark on his personality, one that cannot be erased by the normality the US offers. As the war approaches its end, similar feelings evoke in the other immigrants. The immigrant dilemma becomes unbearable. On one side lies the perfect American life with its security and endless possibilites. On the other hand, many of them feel like shadows of living beings - their history and life has been and will be Germany. Even the Jews feel nostalgic. Yet, going back to the old Germany is impossible. It is still a country dominated by Nazism, it is largely destroyed, and the immigrants are mostly seen as traitors. More importantly, however, these pour souls feel that they will come back but to nothing. And yet staying is impossible because the feeling they have something missing will stay forever.

Love. Despite the difficult to bear topic of war, Remarque always finds a place and a time for love. In the face of Natasha, a Russian immigrant from France, Ros finds the shelter his soul needs. Yet, when you are incomplete and when you are a shadow of a human being, even love is not able to complete you. In Remarque's style, it is philosophical, passionate, and controversial. Natasha and Ros attempt to build something on top of ruins that haven't been completely destroyed yet. The result (as many of us have felt it I am sure) is a fleeting feeling that both sides understand needs to end.

Overall, no surprises from Remarque, which, however, doesn't mean that the author doesn't live up to his standards. The more I read, the more I understand and love Remarque's world of war and destruction. I will not exaggerate if I say, one of the greatest authors to ever live and write.

Further by Remarque: Three Comrades, The Night in Lisbon, The Black Obelisk, A Time to Love and a Time to Die

Birdy by William Wharton - A F(l)ight for the ideal life

I have always lived in three states of time - the past, the future, and the dream. The past I use for recreational purposes - when I want to cry I think of all sorrows and disappointments; when I want to smile I cherish all those moments when I acted out of myself, when I committed a "crime" against society's opinion, which ultimately made me feel like a God. The future I usually imagine in bright (very) colors after that second bottle of wine, when I make promises I am never going to fulfill and when getting that next step to perfection (which so far is the aim of my life) seems so easy. The dreams I value the most. In them I am not bounded by what happened in the past or by how this is going to affect my future. In my dreams I can be anywhere I want; I can change patterns; I can invent new ways; I can transform time and space; I can even transform people to suit my dreams. In dreams I accomplish something neither the past nor the future can give me. I accomplish freedom. Freedom of society's rules, of people's expectations, of daily obligations, of parents' judgements, of even my friends' judgements. I can be free out there. Trivial, but free as a bird.

When I read Birdy by William Wharton I instantly felt this was my book. It takes place in the past and in the dreams and it merely discusses prospects of the future. But it never stays in the present. The present is filled with despair, loneliness, grief, and suffering. What counts is the past and our dreams of a better present. Upon these two sort of realities the friendship between two opposing characters is revealed. Al is the strong, the wrestler, the fighter who looks at ways to conquer the world, to get revenge at some imaginary (or not) enemy, to be unbeatable. Birdy, his best friend, is different. Throughout his childhood and teens he is obsessed with canaries. He is one of those weird people you see with a strange obsession. Birdy's infatuation with birds, though, is more than an obsession. For him this is a way to escape the meticulous, unfair, and lonely life and to get closer to his ideal - to fly. His greatest happiness comes from breading canaries, from endlessly observing their lifestyle and habitat, from helping them mate, from listening to their songs, and most importantly - from learning how to fly like them. Throughout the years Birdy's obsession increases - he now dreams of being a bird. The present is no longer a desirable present for him; he prefers his dream life, where he acts, eats, sleeps, reproduces, and flies as a canary. The two realities coincide simultaneously in his mind, leading to a deep confusion and a mental illness.

Those two opposite characters remain friends despite their differences until they are separated by WWII. I wouldn't go into much detail as to what war does to people; I think I've discussed that quite extensively in Remarque's fiction. What I would say, though, is Al and Birdy return damaged from the war. One physically, the other one mentally. Al is hit severely in the head and in the stomach and returns from the battlefield, much to his own delight. Wharton here gives us the real world - the one where soldiers are afraid to death on the battlefield; the one where they dream of returning safely; the one where bravery and glory are substituted by fear and simple sense of self-protection. Birdy returns from the war under Catch 8 - he believes and he acts as if he is a bird and is thus trapped in a mental institution. Al is called in to help his childhood friend remember he is just a human. The other reality emerges - the stories of the past Al keeps telling his friend are both simple but powerful proofs of a friendship that doesn't make sense on the outside, but fits perfectly on the inside. Both trapped in their own inquisition, Birdy and Al are looking for ways to continue their life in a world, where despair and desolation are predominant, and where love and compassion are forbidden words.

What I loved about the novel are the birds. Birdy's experience in raising, observing, and learning from the canaries spans more than half of the book. And I get to think - are there more similarities or differences between birds and people? Birds (as people) are born helpless, without any skin to protect them. Their parents take care of them, learning them how to fly, how to eat, how to interact, and how to sing. Birds try flying so many times; they fall constantly, yet they continue trying until they succeed. Not all birds are meant to fly and to sing though; only the toughest, the persistant, the never giving-up are the ones who are able to see the sky within limits. Birds mate and love as well. The male chases, the female runs. Then they both take care of the family until the little ones are big enough to leave the nest and take care of themselves. But birds are different in one aspect - they are free and they can fly. They are not bounded by any rules, any prejudices, any judgements. They see the sky and they take it. Life is simple without complications, without too much thought, without asking the inevitable "why" questions. Unlike humans, who used their brain to construct a cage they now call civilization and are now using that same brain to try and escape from it. In that sense, can you blame Birdy's obsession and his desire to be a bird and not a human? Can you really not envy the canaries? Can't you see how simple everything could be if only we could be free. Not only by society, but free from ourselves. Because everyone has its own cage of inquisitions - and it is usually the head.

PS: The present shouldn't be considered in reading this review or this novel. The present is only there so that we can remember the past and dream of another world. Nothing else.

Happy New Year with Erich Maria Remarque and Three Comrades

What was it? New Year - new luck? New Year - new resolutions? I would say - New Year - a new blog and a new book!

I feel extremely guilty for abandoning reading and writing whatsoever for the past two months, but whoever said that when you go through a break-up or any sort of emotional breakdown, you find consolation in your most favorite activities, obviously never went through a break-up. Any form of social activity, movies, reading, or in other words any form of enjoyable act was totally foreign to me for the past few months. I dug into studying and feeling sorry for myself (God, I miss that time, it was awesome), of crying and looking into the mirror (and I actually look sort of pretty when I cry), and into eating tons of sweet stuff (one can totally see the result). Gladly, this period is over, I am back to my normal (weird?) self and I will prove it the only way I can - with a book.

Fourth book by Erich Maria Remarque I read. To be honest, it is going to be the last for quite a long time. Not that I do not enjoy Remarque and not that I in any way undermine his talent. It is just that he is too difficult and too overwhelming at some points.

Three Comrades doesn't deviate from Remarque's traditional style I already saw in The Black Obelisk, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, and The Night in Lisbon. Our disillusioned and depressed character is present again. Of course, Robert (or how they call him Robbie) has participated in WWI and now has to deal with the damages of post-war time in poor and collapsing Germany. He lives a somewhat lonely life, accompanied mostly by his two comrades from the war. Life is difficult, challenging, and depressing. Money is worthless, people are worthless, and love is fleeting and unstable. In that time of despair and loneliness, the only end to a suffering and the only source of enjoyment are the little things. Boring and predictable, you would say. Well, when you have nothing else to hold on, when you work for an auto-repair store, when you barely find money to eat and drink, and when love somehow eludes, you, you stick to your comrades and you attempt to enjoy life in every small aspect.

Until of course, you meet love. Love...I no longer wonder why we always search for love. Even if we have an amazing job, amazing friends, an amazing house, we always feel there something else to it. Well of course, books, movies, magazines, everything bombards us with the theory that a)if you don't find love you are incomplete and b)when you find love, everything else just fixes itself and/or your daily problems no longer matter. Robbie also meets love in the face of the young and fragile Patricia. Their relationship evolves slowly but unfortunately is predestined to a tragic end. At the end, though, which is better - to love but to lose or not to love at all. I would leave the choice to you.

Several images reappear in Remarque's novels making you feel somehow even closer to the writer. The war (well of course). The cemetery. The prostitutes. The comrades from the war. The fragile lady the main character falls in love with. The all-consuming love that goes beyond what the human mind can grasp. And the end of it. What all of this encompasses for me is a thing I am going to call Remarque's world. Definitely not optimistic but strikingly real, it describes life as it is. Ups and downs, friends and enemies, gains and losses, ultimately forming characters you can do nothing but admire.

Bottom line, I said almost nothing about the plot because it is frankly not important. What Three Comrades gives you is a feeling. A feeling of a devastation after a world war. A feeling of sorrow and hopelessness. A sorry feeling for all those poor souls who have to fight to survive. A feeling of a great friendship - one that goes beyond daily problems, one that prompts your best friend to sell his most precious item in order to help you, one that makes your friend commit a crime in order to be there for you. And of course love. In its realest, most purest form, where nothing is only roses and smiles, but where every day is a battle. At the end, are you the loser because you lost your loved one or the winner because you managed to love in a time where people are only able to hate?

One night, one war, one love story - The Night in Lisbon

Where do memories live? What happens to them after we die? Do they continue floating as little pieces of our soul or are they buried along with our body under the ground? What does one do if he has lost everything but wants his story to live even beyond his life? He shares. The Night in Lisbon by Erich Maria Remarque is a novel about sharing. Sharing at the edge of death, at the peak of WWII, at a moment when you just want to feel the presence of another human being amongst the beasts of the war. Two strangers meet and spent a whole night that brings them closer together than if they had spent their whole lives next to each other.

Who are these men? Refugees from WWII. They are unique yet they are like the millions other refugees trying to escape from the long hands of Gestapo. Do we know their names? I am not sure they even know their birth names. They have changed personalities, passports, names, and faces so many times that now they just know they exist. And we don't even need to know who they are. Lets just call them Talker and Listener. Where are they? They are in Lisbon, two men, who at some point in their lives dreamt of boarding a ship to the land of dreams - America. What are they talking about? Life, love, war, betrayal, hope, deceit, death. Why is this novel important? Because it tells the life story of an ordinary man, one of the many enemies of the Reich, who had to flee Europe at the edge of the war. It could have been anyone of these poor souls, who attempted to oppose Hitler and his army of blind believers. And yes, it happens over a night.

The Talker and the Listener meet at the edge of hope - the Lisbon port from where salvation begins, the long dreamt off America. The talker offers a simple deal - he will give the Listener 2 tickets and 2 visas, something unbelievable during these days in exchange of one night of talking. The deal seems suspiciously good. However, despair and hopelessness are all around; one would do anything to escape the land of evil. Numerous bars, several dishes, and constant drinking later the reader knows the story of the Talker. He has fled Germany, he has lived as a refugee, he has come back to take his wife, and he has lost her in between. He has run, lied, suffered, killed, but at the end Gestapo won. In this tale of bravery and love, the power of love is immeasurable but the legacy of German evil - infinite. The talker needs to tell his story; he feels that there must be someone who knows it even when he will no longer be there. Memories will continue living as long as there is someone to remember them. In that sense the deal for him is priceless. Having lost every hope and every will to live, he needs this night in Lisbon to relive the happy memories, to unburden the pain, to remember once again the woman he loved. The role of the listener is far more difficult than it sounds. He has to understand, bear, support, calm, and above all, listen well to the stranger in front of him. Sometimes telling it is easy; comprehending it becomes the tricky part.

The Night in Lisbon is very different from the previous two novels by Remarque I read - A Time to Love and a Time to Die and The Black Obelisk. It is much more static, yet it explores the feelings and doubts of a man faced with impossible choices. The strength of the Talker is sometimes overwhelming. Risking his life, he returns to Germany to save his wife. Overcoming his man pride, he forgives her infidelity. Trying to protect them both he commits a most dangerous murder. At the end, though, he fails to defeat death. He passes on to the Listener not only his life story; he passes to him hope. Hope in the form of the saving two tickets. Hope in the form of advice how to live and how to love. Hope in the form of assurance that you must do the right thing and leave yourself in the hands of destiny. Hope that there is always hope. Even in Nazi Germany. Even in the hands of Gestapo. Even when it seems the whole world has gone mad and has forgotten what love and compassion actually meant.

The unshakable bound these two men form is for life. They have shared a sacred moment, and at the end they even share a name. A legacy passed on from one to another. The death of one becomes the key for a new life for the other. A great novel, where you experience a whole lifetime in a single night. Erich Maria Remarque once again proves he is the most educated author about the two world wars and the sentiments and feelings associated with them. I am planning on a big research on his biography in order to get a thorough understanding of his dedication to this topic. I hope I really got you excited about exploring the amazing philosophical world of Remarque, an experience I so far cannot compare to any other author I have read.

Insanity in The Black Obelisk - Germany between the two world wars

I continue with the absolutely amazing Erich Maria Remarque and of course with the topic of war. Unlike A Time to Love and a Time to Die, which is set during WWII, The Black Obelisk examines the period between the two wars. Set in a small German town, the novel portrays a period of hyperinflation, disillusionment, post-war suffering, and rising of nationalism through the eyes of Ludwig, a naive post-war veteran trying to find his place in a greedy and insensitive world. More philosophical than descriptive, Remarque again denounces war and condemns its terror, brutality and senselessness.

War is terrible. On that there are no two opinions. We have had an enormous amount of literature, both fiction and non-fiction on the subject so we know how it affects people, how it awakens their most animal traits, and how it destroys compassion, love, and emotions. But what about the period between the two wars? How did Germany and its people recover from the disastrous defeat and what spirits and thoughts led to a even more disastrous war? Didn't Germans suffer enough? Didn't they learn their lesson from WWI or did they think the new nationalistic movement was going to restore Germany's fading glory? Remarque attempts to give us an answer in The Black Obelisk, where the insane, the disillusioned, the opportunistic, the impostors, the nationalists, the crippled, and the naive shape the richness of characters and moods in 1920s Germany.

Ludwig, like most of the men, is a post-war veteran trying to find another occupation and another life. Ironically, his destiny has brought him again close to death, working as an assistant in a funeral house. Proximity to death allows Ludwig to analyze people. How else would you know the true character of someone if you don't see him facing and handling death. Some cry, others get depressed, and third ones celebrate. But it is in the way we deal with it that our true character emerges. Through Ludwig's constant interactions Remarque gives an exhaustive portrait of the German population of that time. Hyperinflation has made the DEM invaluable. People receive money in the morning, which by the afternoon cost absolutely nothing. Poverty and desperation is everywhere. Suicide is sometimes the only choice. The ones that actually carried on their backs the WWI are suffering the most. Post-war veterans without legs, arms, and with terrible wounds are begging on the streets. The government does nothing. Nobody cares. It is just the way it is. Some of them are disillusioned and blame the war. Others long for the old military discipline, for the greatness of the German state, for the prosperity. These people are exactly the ones who turn to the nationalist movement, hoping it will eventually restore stability and bring Germany back to the world powers.

There are also the men who prosper. Opportunistic soulless people, who speculate with stocks, money, and people's lives. The exploite the system and become quickly (but as we see unstably) rich. They use ambiguous ways, they visit the trendiest restaurants, they are surrounded by pretty but shallow women. They are on top of the poor German state. But like everything in post-war Germany, this power is fleeting. One day you are rich and alive and the other day you are broke and disillusioned. It was hard surviving the war but at times it feels difficult actually living after the war. Remarque faces us with some of the ugliest human characteristics; he shows that even if human beings are primordially good, unfair and difficult life can turn them into beasts. They are not to be blamed; they are to be understood. Sometimes, though, it is difficult to read and accept the unfairness, the senselessness, and the dispair of the situation.

Ludwig doesn't belong to this world. He was just born in the wrong time, wrong place, wrong surroundings. He is sensitive, naive, and poetic. Even though he works for a funeral house, most probably the least compassionate place, in his free time he attempts to keep his soul. He is a poet, a teacher, a musician. Women take a great part of his life but unfortunately, they always leave him at the end. Understandably. Ludwig cannot survive and win in a world of power and greed. He looks at things and asks questions. He doubts religion, God, money, power, love, sanity. He doesn't conform to established rules, he has his own moral, and he attempts to defend it. However, in a world where people don't feel but steal, don't think but flow, don't love but hate, don't care but corrupt, he is lost. Ludwig's women search for money and stability. He can only offer them romance and tenderness. Not enough for the corrupted minds of the 1920s.

I can probably go on for pages about the war and its devastation effects. But no, I want to talk about love now. Yes, there is and there can be love even in post-war Germany. It is just not the typical sane love you might expect. It is actually strange, unusual, even confusing at times. You hate the person and you love him. At times you don't understand him but that makes you love him even more. I will say that this is my second favorite love story after Florentino and Fermina in Love in the Times of Cholera. Exactly because both loves stories are NOT what you expect them to be and NOT what the world says they should be. The times Ludwig lives in are insane; what is then more normal than to fall in love with an insane girl. Isabel is a patient at the asylum, where Ludwig sometimes work. She is several different people at ones; she has suffered a lot and she has chosen the path of multiple personalities to protect herself from the world. Ironically, she is more sane than the others. Isabel, although being a schizophrenic looks at the world objectively, criticizes unfairness, asks questions, and refuses to oblige to imposed norms and questionable morals. Her beauty is in the way she doubts everything, from the color of the grass to the singing of the birds. Insanity is all around; the biggest irony is that sometimes one finds sanity in the most insane places. In fact, insanity was the only way to survive in Germany. You had to be crazy, you had to be different, you had to be unusual in order to bear the terror and the brutality. You had to lose your mind to find a purpose and a sense in everything that was happening. Insanity protected Ludwig's love; insanity made him connect to Isabel even more. Sanity then ruined everything. Sanity took away passion and connection; sanity destroyed love.

The Black Obelisk is a difficult novel. Difficult to read, difficult to understand, difficult to bear. I must say, though, with all my heart that it is probably one of the best books I have read. I wasn't only reading; I was thinking, doubting, asking, revolting, feeling, crying, and loving. I questioned my own beliefs, I looked at my own morals, I changed my perspective towards love and war and sanity. Erich Maria Remarque creates his own philosophical world and takes us slowly without condemning or criticizing openly. He just gives the facts, presents the conversations, describes the characters. At the end though, you are left overwhelmed with many more questions about the purpose of it all. Whether it is love, life, war, compassion, or sanity.

Starting to read Remarque was probably one of the best decisions I have had lately. I know it is the right time now. A few years back I would have been too young. A few years later I will most probably be too cynical to appreciate it. But now I am exactly the person to read it. Emotional, sensitive, slightly insane, and trying to adapt to a world, where these qualities will make you anything but happy.

Erich Maria Remarque takes us through A Time to Love and a Time to Die in Nazi Germany

Recently I read an article about the topics you should avoid when speaking to a foreigner, depending on his country of origin. Unsurprisingly, the most popular topic one should never mention in front of a German is World War II. Germans are quite sensitive about Hitler, the concentration camps, and the Jews and they don't like discussing it or even mentioning it. However, this is the single most violent event of the 20th century and I barely know a person who has no or little opinion on it. After all, Bulgaria has spend 500 years under the Turkish yoke, but I still don't mind talking about racial issues and confrontations. Despite this German peculiarity (along with their many many other peculiarities, which I simply don't get) one of the authors who talks most exhaustively about World War II is exactly German. I present you Erich Maria Remarque.

A few weeks back a friend of mine, whose literary opinion I greatly admire, asked me an interesting question: "Is there a single author, whose complete works you have read?" I thought about it for a long time, and although I have read quite a few novels from Dostoyevsky, I cannot actually say I read it all. I don't even believe it is possible to read it all. Then she suggested I read all (or most of what) Erich Maria Remarque has written. I was ashamed to say that I hadn't read anything and I haven't even the slightest idea what, how, and why he writes. She immediately corrected my mistake and gave me quite a few books. The result is that a new era is about to hit Read with Style. Starting from today, I am going to read solely Remarque for the following months. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to bore you or to present you with only one side of literature. I believe my blog has been quite diverse so far, so I feel it is time for me to focus on a particular subject, or on a particular author. I start with A Time to Love and a Time to Die, not one of Remarque's most famous novels but certainly a very good first impression for the German-born author.

War is heroic, war is noble, war is protecting the superior Arian race. At least that is what gestapo was trying to promote to the common people during World War II and especially close to Germany's defeat. It is difficult (or almost) impossible to believe so when you are bombarded almost every other day, when you lose your house and your family, when your son/husband/father is fighting and dying on the front. Set through the eyes of a simple soldier, Ernst Graeber, the novel explores the cruelty of the war, the hypocrisy of the leaders, and the disillusionment of the people. Soldiers have no other choice but to go and fight for the cause. No one asks them whether they want to or whether they believe in it. No one gives them a choice. Some of them are born and raised under the Nazi rule. They believe in the postulates of the Party, they believe of the superiority of the Arian race, and they foolishly obey any order given to them. They are cruel, stupid, and ignorant. Yet they drive the Party and they cherish its development. Others, like Graeber, they think. They analyze what they have been told, they compare to the reality on the front and they realize the fatuity of the war, the hopelessness of the situation, and the unbelievable cruelty of the Party officials. Graeber attempts to stay patriotic even when he returns for a deserved leave after two years spend on the front. However, when he sees the damages the war has done to his closest people, when he falls in love with a girl, whose father suffers in a concentration camp, when he meets his old teacher hiding or his friends dying in the hospitals, he begins to question the purpose of it all.

There is a time to die but there is also a time to love. Unfortunately, soldiers are not given that choice. They are not given a choice at all. The hardest thing is to realize that what you are doing is cruel, purposeless, and doomed but yet to continue doing it because you have no other choice. The hardest thing is to know that you only have a couple of weeks to fall in love, to get married, to experience this love, and to separate. The hardest thing is to be completely unaware of the state of your parents and relatives. The hardest part is seeing your friends die and being unable to help them. The hardest thing is witnessing foolish and ignorant bootlickers, who have memorized Mein Kampf without understanding it, climb easily the stairs of power and influence. The hardest thing is seeing injustice and being absolutely helpless to change it. Yet, this was life for Graeber and for many others like him. War was not fair and it never will be. War doesn't ask you whether it is time to love or to die. War doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. And war doesn't care about what is fair or not. It is just war and it is a time to die.

Needless to repeat myself, my favorite subject is indeed World War II. The previous three novels I reviewed here, Sarah's Key, The Book Thief, and The Diary of Anne Frank focused on the personal sufferings of three children in different Nazi occupied countries. However, Remarque enriched me with a totally different perspective - the sufferings and the inner conflicts of the soldier, the main driver of the war. A driver that sometimes doesn't understand the war, doesn't believe in the war, even hates the war. A soldier that wants to love but it is actually his time to die.