Quotations Remarque. Erich Maria Remarque: quotes, aphorisms and sayings

Erich Maria Remarque ... He really is great with his humanity - a classic, who was destined to write a suffering soul in a terrible era of world wars ...

At first his name was pronounced as Erich Paul Remarque. At the age of nineteen during the First World War, he almost became a cripple because of five painful battle wounds. Doctors prophesied to him the short-lived and joyless existence of a disabled person, but his strength of spirit was stronger. However, the most terrible blow for Eric was an untimely death from the afflicted troubles and grief of his mother - a year later, after the injury. Later Remarque's quotes were used by biographers, describing the sufferings he suffered: "Mother is the most touching of all that is on earth. Mother means forgiving and sacrificing oneself. "

Special talent of the writer

As he told in his memoirs, in order to acquire a kind of talisman in the period of heavy losses, one day a decision came: to replace "Paul" in the full name with the name of the mother - Maria. Erich believed that this would be further protected in his life, a schoolboy-half-educated, scorched by war.

Originality and imagery of thinking was organically inherent in this talented person. Perhaps, therefore, quotes from the books of Remarque about love and war, about a person and his feelings touch the soul of readers.

Sometimes the author's thoughts are so sharp, concise, laconic, original, that they are immediately remembered by the reader, becoming aphorisms.

Remark begins his literary career

Not a greenhouse school of life he passed in his youth. Strong body still recovered. After the injury, he tried to take place as a musician, racing driver, and then - as a journalist. At this time he wrote the first works, in style resembling tabloid press. However, after five years, his apparent professional growth can be traced : he is entrusted with prestigious work in Europe - to be a correspondent of the Hannover edition Echo Continental. It was a good school. Returning to Germany, he becomes the editor of the weekly "Shport im bild."

Creating the author of the best novel in the world about the First World War

Four years later Remarque undertook to write a novel that brought him fame and prosperity - "On the Western Front without Change." The story of an outstanding master of prose about those people who, being torn from a peaceful life, was pushed into the burning furnace of war, is realistic, they forced to die by the thousands. Subsequently, the novel clearly opposed to Hitler's power, appealing to the humanism of readers, evoking their compassion, rejection of violence.

The author seemed to have foreseen the German catastrophe in the 1940s, telling about his compatriots who turned into cannon fodder. Critics admit that in the world literature this novel is the best book about the First World War.

His continuation - the book "Return" - talked about the writer's contemporaries, who, crippled physically and spiritually, having returned from the front to a peaceful life, were unclaimed, unhidden.

Forced emigration

There are no prophets in their own country. Klikushi soon called the writer's works "subversive." The humanistic perception of the tragedy of military conflicts by the author clearly did not coincide with the Goebbels ideology of the National Socialists, who came to power in the 1930s in Germany. As the fascists claimed, his works "weakened the German spirit," and Erich Maria Remarque himself became "the enemy of the Fuhrer."

The Nazis, apart from barbarism, had nothing to oppose to the truth of Remarque's honest story about the fate of his generation, crippled by the war: his "treacherous" books were publicly burned. The writer, fearing reprisal, emigrated to Switzerland.

40 years of emigration ...

Was the period of emigration of the writer coincidentally coincided with the time of Moses search for "the promised land" for his people? Remark showed himself outside the homeland not only as a writer - a patriot, but also as a writer - a philosopher. He himself wrote: "Time does not heal ...".

The classic shows in his novels the whole world the real German spirit, the spirit of thinkers, humanists, workers, profoundly rethinking the tragedy of his homeland and his countrymen. The very spirit that forced us to talk about the "German miracle" - the rapid revival of the country.

From Switzerland, he moved to France, then - to Mexico, then - to the United States. His "emigre" novels - "Triumphal Arch", "Night in Lisbon", "Love your neighbor" - become iconic in world literature. Contemporaries understand: Remark writes a classic.

His works - "Three Comrades", "Triumphal Arch", "Life on loan", "Night in Lisbon". "Black obelisk", "Time to live and time to die" - widely known and screened. The thoughts set forth by Remarque in them are quoted and relevant.

Each of Remarque's novels deserves a separate article, but we have the opportunity to write more about only one thing.

"Triumphal Arch"

The novel "The Arc de Triomphe" was written by Remarque at the end of World War II in the United States, where he emigrated. Its basis is the true story of a German emigre, Dr. Fresenburg, who used the false name of Ravik abroad. At the same time, Remarque introduced into the image of the main character of the novel a lot of personal ...

This is a paradoxical book, because, despite the fact that its plot covered the years of the bloody war, its leitmotif was love. Love, which "does not stain friendship." In this work you can feel not just the style of the author, there is an amazing power of his creativity. The story of the talented German surgeon Ravik, who illegally resides in Paris and brilliantly operates, while retaining his incognito, can not leave readers indifferent, because he "spends life in many hotels", remembering the pre-war homeland, which he calls "lost paradise".

The commonality of the image of Ravik and the personality of his author

Remark created the "Triumphal Arch", not only generously endowing the main character with autobiographical features. Like Dr. Ravik, he could not live in his native Germany (the Nazis annulled his citizenship). Like that, he fought in the First World War. As the main character of the novel, he was in love. However, in the literary Joan Madou was a very real prototype - Marlene Dietrich, whom Remark had in 1937 a bright novel, which ended only the death of the writer in 1970. It was an unhappy love, because Marlene was not created for family life ... The writer's talented presentation of the history of their love makes readers memorize Remarque's quotes, enjoying their poetic and sublime.

What else drew together the great German novelist of the 20th century with Dr. Ravik? Hatred of the fascists. According to the plot of the book, the surgeon kills in Paris the Gestapo-executioner Haak, tortured and tortured to bring his beloved to suicide.

If you were a creator of this hero, a front-line writer, a man guillotining his beloved older sister Elfried in Germany, perhaps this ill-conceived enemy would have been destroyed in real life in approximately the same way! The "selfish" initial sense of revenge in Ravik's mind, after reflection, was replaced by the desire to "resume the struggle." This can be understood by rereading Remarque's citations about the war, about human dignity.

"Triumphal Arch" - a deep, philosophical novel

What else brings the literary image and its creator closer? The inner core, which allows not only to survive the times of the brown plague of fascism, but also to become ideological opponents of a misanthropic ideology. His attitude to fascism Remarque does not express directly. For him it is "prison dungeons", "frozen faces of tortured friends", "the hardened grief of the living". But it is clearly seen through the phrases of his characters: sometimes exposing, sometimes cynical. Like an artist - with individual strokes - he delivers to the reader the rethought essence of the "brown plague."

Remark on the role of books in life

No one before, nor after, wrote about books so sincerely. After all, for an outcast man, an emigrant man, these "cubic pieces of smoking conscience" were often the only closest friends. And Remarque, and Dr. Ravik, created by him, being far from their homeland, find an outlet for the soul in reading books. How accurate are Remarque's quotes about them, real friends and advisers for the suffering human souls, an intangible product of human genius!

He was fond of the works of Zweig, Dostoevsky, Goethe, Thomas Mann. Of course, books on philosophy and good classical literature do not bring additional material means for existence. However, as the German classic of the 20th century painstakingly writes, they create an irresistible barrier to evil in the person's soul, which does not allow this dark element to enter into his life.

The author's image in the Arc de Triomphe

The quotations of Remarque speak about the author's life position. "The Arc de Triomphe ... with its huge defends the grave of the Unknown Soldier", acts as a pan-European symbol of peace and stability. It is perceived as a kind of majestic artifact that survived the rise and collapse of Napoleon and who is destined to survive the Hitler fiasco. The novel itself is a hymn to the European worldview, based on love, universal values: reasonable individualism, tolerance, critical reflection of reality, readiness for dialogue.

Despite the fact that Dr. Ravik, living in Paris on forged documents, undergoes deprivation - has no permanent housing, has not got a family and children - he is not embittered, his thoughts and actions are honest and open. He, following his conscience, helps people in situations where his more prosperous colleagues show self-interest and selfishness.

A high degree of decency in private life has always been marked by Remarque himself. He, like Mother Teresa, tried to help everyone. For example, a colleague of Hans Sachachever Erich simply sheltered in his house ... His works were in demand and brought fees, he actually spent them all on financial assistance to his fellow dissidents.

A heavy personal loss for the writer was the loss of his friend - the German journalist Felix Mendelssohn, who was killed in public, in broad daylight by Nazi agents.

He is ill with his soul for his compatriots, especially those who are in France. After all, the occupation of this country by Germany for many of them ended in concentration camp and death ... Perhaps, therefore, on the minor note Remarque ends his most tragic novel. The jealous actor is killed by a controversial and feminine Joan. German troops cross the borders and approach the capital of France. Ravik acts like a fatalist - police surrender, instead of hiding ...

A special atmosphere of the Paris of the 30s transmitted by the author

It would be unfair to talk about the Triumphal Arch, not to mention its artistic and historical value. Reading it, as if plunged into a pre-war atmosphere ... About a special image of Paris, living an unnatural luxury life, as if by inertia, the quotes of Remarque are told. "The Arc de Triomphe" tells about the carefree life of French society. The fragility of this state of affairs is obvious.

Symbolic in the description of the French capital is the emphasis of the readers' attention on two buildings - the Arc de Triomphe and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Conclusion

The reader community is many ... We are really different: poor and rich, fortunate and struggling for existence, seeing the world in bright colors and drawing it in gray tones. So what do we have in common?

It would be desirable that, having asked this question, the readers themselves found the answer in classical literature, remembering some quotations ... Erich Remarque, being essentially an individualist, in fact, in all his novels, appealed to the common humanity. And its main values, according to the writer, should be love, friendship, loyalty, decency. A person who possesses these qualities invariably brings light to that little world where he lives.

However, this is not enough. After all, the "passport" (ie, citizenship), according to Remarque, gives a person only one right - to die of hunger, "not staying on the run." Therefore it is also important to be a professional in the chosen case.

All these qualities are inherent in the literary heroes of Remarque.