WAR STRIPPED OF ITS ILLUSIONS.

Shannon News, 26 July 1929, Page 2

WAR STRIPPED OF ITS ILLUSIONS.

A SCHOLARLY ESTIMATE OF THE BOOK OF THE MOMENT. HOLDING THE MIRROR UP TO TRUTH. A Methodist minister recently took as the subject for a sermon Remarque’s sensational book, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and in a straightforward manner covered some ground that has not been' traversed by many of tli critics. He is the Rev. F. J. Handy, and his address was delivered in the Methodist Church at Marton. After referring to the immense circulation of the book, the refusal of the Auckland Public Library to accept it, and the prevalent curiosity aroused through this jp.eans and through Press, notices, he said he was convinced that the work would be widely read, and, unless the average person was prepared for the revelation of horror, the shattering of every ideal and convention, the sordid recital of mud and blood and filth, he believed it would cause much pain, increase human misery and blight for life immature minds. He explained that he sought to pro xtect the weak, the undeveloped, the refined and the sensitive from the realisa-

tion of that systematic butchery and demoralising barbarity and infamous horror so faithfully recorded by Remarque. But in his later remarks, MiHandy succeeded in showing that the book has a very definite purpose, as some of the following extracts from the address will show: — “He tells his story in the language that was U3ed—it is the language of the cesspool, unnecessarily vulgar, and offensive, and crude. With determined, unswerving., merciless skill, he depicts the tragedy of a million men sinking in soul-crushing filth, or being blasted in shattered pieces into eternity by the institution of war.” “The writer, like the Bible and some of the best passages in English literature, holds the. mirror before life, and the mirror reflects that life in all its repulsive aspects. I am of opinion that, before the book is fit for ‘general reading, it must be cleansed of its

vulgar words and offensive passages,

This could be well done without robbing the book of its message and appeal.” , “One by one he sees his comrades, ‘ his schoolmates, die. . . some dying the most terrible deaths. He himself fell in October, 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to Ihe single sentence: ‘All quiet on the Western front.’ I know of no other book that contains so much sorrow. In every line the agony of God is expressed. With others, I believe it to be the testimony of a million dead, pleading from their graves, plead-

dug to the living to honour their sacrifice, arid remember their jn-omise If ,you are a man or a woman to whom the name of Avar has become irritating arid tiresome, read the book —it \A-as Avritten for you. And if you have any soul at all, any love for humanity, any feeling for your felloAvs, it Avill change your apathy into action and fire your soul AA'ith pity. If you are a man over military age, Avit-h strong ideas about young men fighting for their God and country, and the immortal glory they may win on the battlefield, read that book. • It was Avritten especially for you and your kind. And if you have the manhood and character that you expect to find in younger men, you Avill bow your head in shame and ask God tc forgive you for your silly jingoism If you are a mother Avith sons and you Avouid like to know the conditions that Avar Avouid impose upon the boys you have loved and trained, and suffered for, read that book. Knowing, -something of a mother’s love, I say in all reverence and sincerity a mother would rather have her boy resting quietly in his graA-e, Avlvich she could care for and pray beside, than to let him be exposed to the environment of a modern battlefield.’’ “Men and Avomen are going to read this book who had a son or a brother, a husband or a lover, away at the Avar, and they are going to ask themselves the questions, ‘Did he talk like this; did he act in this manner; Avas this a

common experience?’ Unless it is clearly understood that the book, although Nit is truth, is not the whole truth, it will cause much sorrow. There were thousands of men like Donald Hankey and Rupert Brooke who maintained their ideals, and kept their honour unspotted, and withstood the deadening effects and demoralising vice of modern Avar”

“instead of adopting a semi-suspie-ious attitude towards our returned men because of the sensational reA'elations that are revealed in this book, Ave should remember the terrible experience through which they Avere compelled to pass. If there is any condemnation, Ave should be ready to it. “I think that the critics of the book haA r e overlooked one A r ital fact in their estimation of the result of the book upon the mind of the people. The author has no object in vieAV but to represent the Avar as The reader closes the book AA r ith the feeling that he has Avaded through a cesspool of human degradation and misery only to find despair and hopelessness on the other iside. I fair to agree with the reviewers that the book Avill contribute very much to the , uplifting of humanity from the barbarism of Avar. Their psychology is at fault.”

“ ‘Look doAvn, ’ cry the reformers, ‘and see the horrible pit of uncleanness and impurity into Avhich you are likely to fall’ It is about time that the time Avas changed—about time that more voices Avere raised, and more books Avere printed, and more pictures were shoAVn telling the people to look up. The positive ideal of international brotherhood, and the recognition of the rights of other nations, would

create a greater and more powerful dynamic for Avorld peace than the study of the horrors of war,-’’