[Discussion] Runner-up Read: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, Chapters 1-4

Achtung! You'd better be ready to discuss this book with me because I just posted this on Reddit. Comment on the marginalia and consult the schedule. Let's get on with it.

Summary

The German soldiers are at rest five miles away from the front. The narrator Paul Bäumer can smoke 40 cigarettes a day. There are more rations because only 80 men out of 150 returned. They object to the stinginess of the cook. The lieutenant intervenes and makes him serve more.

Three sit on mobile latrine boxes and play skat#:~:text=Skat%20(German%20pronunciation%3A%20%5B%CB%88ska%CB%90t,of%20Saxe%2DGotha%2DAltenburg. ) amongst the poppies while they scat. They lost their shyness. Franz Kemmerich got a blighty in the thigh.

They had been pressured and guilted by their schoolmaster Kantorek to enlist. Joseph Behm was hesitant but signed up. He was the first to die. They visit Kemmerich in the first aid tent. His foot was amputated, and they can tell he's not long for this world. Müller only cares about who will get his boots. The staff will steal them. Paul gives an orderly some cigarettes as a bribe to give Kemmerich some morphine.

The schoolmaster wrote them a letter praising them as “Iron Youth.” Paul knows differently because they have aged too fast. The young men were only 19 and haven't lived much. Paul wrote poems and part of a play. Their life before was school, their parents, and maybe a girlfriend. In basic training, they still idealized war. They answered to a different authority than before: a postman turned Corporal Himmelstoss. He singled out Paul for punishment and training all the time. Paul and Kropp spilled a latrine bucket on him, and when he raged, they told him they'd testify against him. They were toughened up for combat, Paul conceded.

Kemmerich says Müller can have his boots. He knows about his foot. It hurts Paul the most because they grew up together. He pretends that Kemmerich will go to a solder's home at Klosterberg. Instead, Kemmerich dies. The stressed out doctor tells him that Franz is the 17th death today. Paul runs away from the horrible place. Müller gets his boots. He gives Paul tea and sympathy.

There are new recruits to replace those lost. They are 2 years younger, but Paul feels much older. Katczinsky is good at making deals. He traded parachute silk for some beef and beans. One time they were billeted in an empty factory building. Katczinsky found straw to make their bunks tolerable. He procured bread and horse meat plus a pan, fat, and seasonings to cook it.

Kat pontificates that a man given a little authority and rank becomes a tyrant to those below him. Himmelstoss was called up to the front. The soldiers had their revenge one night as he walked past: they threw a sheet over him, beat him up, and whipped his behind.

They are sent to the front to do wiring for fences. They all become more alert. The English and French fire rockets and guns. They embrace the earth as they take cover. Paul tries to sleep. One of the new recruits cowers in fear without his helmet. Paul places it on his bottom. He was embarrassed that he shat himself. Horses are wounded and scream unceasingly. Detering grew up on a farm and can't bear to hear them suffer. He thinks war is no place for a horse.

They are shelled at in the wee hours in the woods. They take cover in the cemetery behind the mounds. Paul takes cover in a hole under a coffin. They pull gas masks over their faces. They already feel suffocated. One guy's arm is wounded, and they use coffin wood for a splint. A recruit is shot in the hip and arm. It's the same guy who panicked. Kat and Paul know his life will be miserable if he survives. They should shoot him. Others overhear and stare at them. They get a stretcher instead. On the way back to HQ in a truck, they have to bend their knees while half asleep so the telephone wire doesn't hit them.

u/Cowboy_in_Jupiter shared a helpful vocabulary resource in the Marginalia if anyone wants to use it.

Questions are in the comments. Be back here on Sunday, February 9, for Chapters 5-6. At ease!