"All Quiet on the Western Front" not the remake we expected

Some negative reviews have come in for Netflix's remake of  "All Quiet on the Western Front." They all say the same thing, that the movie is not loyal to the book. That's true -- it leaves out some crucial scenes and adds scenes between the German and French armistice-seekers on the war's closing days. Also, the ending. The famous butterfly ending of the 1930 movie vs. this version which takes its time settling Paul Baumer's life and the armistice. He dies and the camera lingers on his young face, so young and so dead. 

I read Erich Marie Remarque's novel in the sixth grade. It wasn't a class assignment. My father had a massive library and I had a library card as soon as I could walk. Dad's World War II collection was a doozy. "Guadalcanal Diary," Ernie Pyle's "Brave Men," Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe cartoons, "They Were Expendable," "PT109." He was a WWII veteran, an infantry radioman in France, Belgium, and Germany. He also had World War 1 books, probably because his mother and father both served in that war. I was entranced by the pilots of those rickety old airplanes. I was obsessed with the Lafayette Escadrille and the "The Red Baron" Richthofen's aerial battles. I read all Nordhoff and Hall books, as  both had been pilots in The Great War. I also read their Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy. Even now, I equate their "The Falcons of France" with "Mutiny on the Bounty." Adventure books. Boys' books. They made me yearn to be a fighter pilot and Fletcher Christian. Only in my imagination.

I was a kid and really had no idea what I was reading about any war. As bodies piled up in books, I viewed that as part of the adventure. My viewpoint has changed over the decades. I never went to war, the one of my generation in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos. I was 18 when I graduated high school in 1969. I never served in the military although I was in the Navy ROTC program for 18 months. I felt guilty about my lack of service for a long time, especially in the 1980s when Reagan told us we had licked the Vietnam Syndrome. I had Viet Vet friends. I had peacenik friends. I read a lot of books about Vietnam. There always some nagging sense that I had missed out on something. How odd that seems now. 

I reread "All Quiet" prior to watching the Netflix movie. I also rewatched the 1930 movie, released just a year after talkies appeared. The book and the movie both cover Paul's recruitment and his leave when he confronts those who were so eager to send him to war. They are at the heart of the book. Paul was subject to "the old lie" in Wilfred Owens' poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est." After recounting the deadly effects of a gas attack, Owen ends his poem with this:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some desperate glory/The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori.

That sentiment appears in the new "All Quiet on the Western Front." It just doesn't get the starring role I expected.  

What it was like to be in England "The Summer Before the War"

The war was World War I or The Great War, as it was known before there was a second installment to worldwide slaughter. In the village of Rye in Sussex in England, the Edwardian Era was in full bloom. Men were men, women were women, and sheep grazed peacefully in verdant pastures. A young Latin teacher, Beatrice Nash, lands in the village. She still mourns the death of her father, a semi-famous poet. In Rye, she confronts the sexism of the time with great aplomb which caught this reader's attention right away. Her story is woven into those of Agatha Kent, a spunky middle-aged matron who lobbied to bring Beatrice to the local school. She also shelters her two nephews, Daniel, a foppish budding poet and Hugh, a medical student. The scene is set for this comedy of manners which eventually runs headlong into The Guns of August.

"The Summer Before the War" is Helen Simonson's second book and her first historical novel. She's done her homework, as far as I can tell. I am researching the same era in the U.S. for my novel "Zeppelins Over Denver," although a more accurate title might be "The Summer after the War." Only five years separate 1914 from 1919, but those years changed forever the very different worlds of Rye and Denver. The scope of those changes in Rye were perhaps more remarkable, given that the place had hundreds of years of history with pubs in buildings built in the 15th century. The settlement and later the city of Denver was but 60 years old in 1919, Colorado just 42 years into statehood and still possessed many of the traits of the frontier. Native Americans lived there for centuries but they were expendable during The Great Western Expansion, especially when gold was discovered in Cherry Creek. And we all remember the Sand Creek Massacre.

What happens when you deposit a crop of restless people into a restless place going through its own historic changes? A novel, I hope, a good one and publishable. Some 20 million people died in World War I and millions more in the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919. More than a million U.S. soldiers went overseas and many returned changed in body and in mind. Nurses, too, women who had only imagined a quiet married life found themselves in bloody field hospitals while German shells exploded around them. Wars tumult sent many of them on the move to new places. Women would get the vote in 1920 and Prohibition began (Colorado got an early start in 1916). Racial strife spawned the "Red Summer" of 1919, when race riots flared in U.S. cities as black soldiers returning from war said they weren't going to take this shit any more. Working men went out on strike and were beat up and killed for their efforts. The Communists had turned Russia red. That "subversive" influence was felt in the U.S., and helped spawn the investigative unit that would eventually become J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. People traveled in automobiles and airplanes, even zeppelins. Jazz was the new sound and the Charleston the wild new dance.

What a time. I share Simonson's passion for the era. It involves digging into archives and digital records available through Google. War videos can be viewed on YouTube, and you can also listen to some great tunes such as "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine" and "How You Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm after They've seen Paree." The audio is tinny and scratchy which only adds to my listening pleasure. As I conducted research, it occurred to me that this entire generation is gone. A baby born in 1900, such as my Irish grandfather, would turn 119 this year. If you were born when the war ended, you would turn 101. There are some centenarians out there, but they are rare. Their collective memories lie within us, their descendants, and in the records they left behind. Their stories live on. However, it is through fiction that they really come to life.

Thus it is with Simonson's novel. Her leisurely writing style is reminiscent of the writers of the era, some of whom lived and worked in Sussex, such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf. But a formal tone and leisurely pace does not a boring book make. Simsonson''s characterizations are sharp and her conflicts very real. Humor, too, a real penchant for satire with writers as her favorite target. She has a lively time portraying the Henry James-like Tillingham, the poet Daniel who, a few decades on, would be wearing a black beret and mumbling his poems in a smoky coffee house, and Beatrice's almost-but-not-quite-famous father.

SPOILER ALERT! The townspeople rise to the occasion when was breaks out. They welcome refugees from Belgium. However, when one of the young women, Celeste, turns up pregnant and its discovered she was raped by German soldiers, angry residents lobby to turn her out. When her father arranges for Celeste to go to a convent, Daniel, the foppish poet, agrees to marry her. While Simonson sets her book in a bucolic setting in the midst of a beautiful summer and fall, she doesn't want us to forget that humans are fallible, even horrid, creatures..

"The Summer Before the War" is published by Random House. The trade paperback sells for $17. Listen to the 2016 Diane Rehm NPR interview with Simonson at https://dianerehm.org/shows/2016-03-22/helen-simonson-the-summer-before-the-war

Part IV: Mudder's World War I diary

August 15, Thursday 
The guns sure did run all night. I heard this morning that 88th Division went over the top about 4am. Howard came over in the afternoon, mighty good to have callers way out here. Went on duty 7pm, only had two cases.

August 16, Friday 
Some hot day, I was beginning to think that France did not have any summer but my mind has changed, Nothing of interest happened.

August 17, Saturday 
My, some air raid. The German aero plane was directly over our tent, the anti-aircraft was might busy shooting, of the noise lasted quite a while but not much success did either have. Had a date with a captain tonight.

August 18, Sunday 
Started out about 10am to Evac #4. Went up in a huge U.S. truck went about fifteen miles. Saw a couple nurses I knew at camp. On arriving back who should whiz by in a machine but Bob Gill, I recognized him, he stopped and we talked for quite awhile, we were both glad to see each other. In the afternoon, a Baltimore lad sat under the tree after dinner with some of the officers, to bed early.

August 18, 1918 
Took a walk up to one of the camps, the officers showed us around had to rush home for mess, came back in a Dodge. Nothing exciting happened. Only we are to move tomorrow, can you beat it. The guns sure sound loud today.

August 20, Tuesday 
Laid around under the trees all day, waiting for orders, left about 8pm in trucks for Crezancy. The train left there about 1030pm, not much sleep for us sitting up all night.

August 21 
Arrived, stayed there long enough for us to go the Red Cross for breakfast was real good too. Traveled all day. The train went about 10 miles an hour, arrived at Toul 8pm, went to Evac #1. Sebastopol in ambulances, there we were given a bed, and did I sleep. I’ll say I did, I never have been quite so tired.

August 22 
Breakfast at 8am, and what a treat, a different meal than I had been used to for a long while. Called on the Quarter Master; he gave a dandy box of chocolates. In the evening four of us girls and one officer went to town in truck, came back in a large car. Toul is not such a bad place. We hear the Boche planes every night, put on our helmets, that’s all.

August 23 
Got up late, went to Toul to lunch and we had a mighty good one too. Hurried back because we are to move again. To Toul this time but not until tomorrow. We visited a really old cathedral, talked to some officers at the Y.M.C.A and then came home in an ambulance.

August 24 
Moved from Sebastopol to Toul. Went out to lunch and afterward took a long ride in an ambulance, nearly went to the front. After dinner, took a walk with two officers and another nurse. 

August 25 
Went to church, looked for the Y.M.C.A. but landed in a Catholic Church. Had dinner in town, came home in a truck.

August 26 
Went downtown for a short while, In the evening took a walk with Captain B, went calling across the street had some music there so we and a little dance and it was great too.

August 27 
Nothing exciting happened. Went to town in the afternoon, took a walk with some officers. Went to bed very early.

August 28 
Went down to officers’ Y.M.C.A , had some breakfast including hot waffles. Coming back, met Captain Ackley, sure was glad to see him.

August 29 
Went out to dinner with Lt. Booker, very nice time. August 30 Went to Bazoilles in a large sedan with a captain and lieutenant, some good time, believe me and so unexpected. Heard a Boche plane at night but no damage. The guns did some running during the night.

August 30 
Met Dr. Skilling in town today and was surprised to see him. Took a walk in the evening, nothing exciting happened.

September 1 
Went to church, Lieutenant took us down in his machine, little trouble in finding the place. After the service Miss Martin and I walked up to the station. (Miss Coleman from #42 told me that Goldie was coming from Base #15 on a team), well I met old Leach sitting on a suitcase and was so pleased to see her. The three offices from MD Unit and the rest of us went out to dinner; I was given two letters, one from home, so glad to get it. Nothing else exciting happened except three officers from #45 say they were going to give us a dance soon.

September 2 
If we have many more air raids I am afraid my hair will turn white. No bombs struck our place but oh my. Walked into town, had a dinner engagement but the machine the officers were in turned over, they were late so did not wait.

September 3 
Went over to Evac #1, I think we were in five different machines getting there. We also visited an aviation field, surely was interesting, almost had the promise of a flight. Two of the officers are coming over to call tomorrow night.

September 4 
Another air raid, do I like them? The further away the better I like them. Went out for dinner. Cora K sure did doll up. I don’t know who for unless it was the Mess Officers. Oh you aviators.

Florence Green with other nurses at a hospital in France, 1918.