Reviews

Eight Stories: Tales of War and Loss by Erich Maria Remarque

avalinahsbooks's review against another edition

4.0

The Eight Stories themselves were originally written by Erich Maria Remarque between the two world wars, if I'm not mistaken, and published in American magazines (literary journals?) I am a big fan of Remarque, so of course I was going to grab at this review copy. I absolutely enjoyed the stories themselves, but I didn't like the quite lengthy introductory bit with all the history and background of the stories. But you are right in saying that one can just skip this part if they don't want to be bogged down with it. The stories themselves are as relevant as they were when they were written, even if it is nearly 100 years later. Talk of PTSD, war atrocities and the fake glory of punishing your enemy are very relevant today in the political atmosphere we have now. We are losing the last people who still remembered how actually ugly the war is and that there is ultimately no winning side, and that's why people are starting to buy into the illusion that war is not that bad – I believe that in light of that, literature like Erich Maria Remarque's stories should be given even more attention.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.


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