Tom Lake Charming, but a One-Trick Pony

 

Tom Lake (2023)

By Ann Patchett

Harper, 320 pages.

★★★

 

 

 

Public school teachers and parents will recognize these scenarios. A student sees you downtown is startled that you’re wearing jeans and sneakers. Do you remember when you assumed your parents had no lives before you came along? To be fair, it’s often hard to imagine someone outside of their customary roles.

 

That’s the central premise of Tom Lake, the latest novel from Ann Patchett, which is  riding high on best-seller lists. It centers on Joe and Lara Nelson, a happily married couple with three young adult children: Emily, Maisie, and Nell. Except for Emily, who wants to stay local, each will soon fly the proverbial coop. In the present they are together on the shores of Lake Michigan, where the Nelsons tend their fruit orchards. Picking a cherry crop is so labor intensive that the daughters wile away the hours by picking Lara’s brain about her years before she married. They know bits and pieces, including that she once dated Peter Duke, an actor who became famous and won an Oscar. In her sullen teen years, Emily imagined that Peter was her real father and would show up to take her away from the farm. Irony alert: Now she’s engaged to the proverbial boy next door and wants to run the orchard when her parents retire. Maisie has her eyes set on becoming a veterinarian and Nell thinks she might take up acting.

 

A story within a story is not exactly the most original premise in literature, but Patchett has written a charming PG-13 novel. Tom Lake riffs off Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. When she was a misunderstood high school kid in Durham, New Hampshire, bucked up by her grandmother Nell, Lara played Emily in Our Town and did so again in college. She was so good that she caught the eye of an avuncular Hollywood agent who sent her to Los Angeles to make a movie. Quite a few completed movies either never get released, or rest in limbo until financing, post production, and distribution issues are ironed out. In the lull, Lara is sent to New York to try out for a Spalding Gray production of Our Town. She did not get the part, so her agent suggested she do summer stock to develop her chops.

 

The novel’s namesake body of water is Tom Lake, Michigan, home to a venerable stage reminiscent of summer theatre in the Berkshires. As it happens, they are doing Our Town and their Emily has just left the cast. Twenty-four-year-old Lara steps in and wows the cast. Before the day is out, she’s sleeping with Peter Duke, four years her elder and  a privileged carefree hunk. Lara recounts her past in pieces and dribbles as she ponders what to confess. Her daughters have seen her film and would not be shocked about sex, but maybe there are parts of her past that Lara prefers to remain private.

 

Legends abound of summer stock drama and trauma that’s not on the stage. The Tom Lake cast is no exception. It was certainly an interesting group: Lara’s black understudy and friend Pallace; Albert, an older actor whom everyone called Uncle Wallace who is overly fond of the bottle; visits from Peter’s older brother Sebastian, a tennis pro; and a director whose Aunt Maisie and Uncle Ken run a cherry farm in Michigan. When part of the cast pays a visit to it, Peter likes it so much he wants to stay. There’s a Great Expectations twist to that trip, and later a break-a-leg moment.

 

In all, Lara had a life-altering summer, and a few subsequent hookups with Peter. But after returning to New York and realizing that Emily was the only role at which she excelled, Lara quit acting. She married Joe Nelson, had three daughters, and never looked back. Of course, her daughters doubt that she had no regrets, but it’s often hard for children to imagine anyone opting for a non-glamorous life. There are also revelations about Joe’s youthful digressions that bring matters into focus and a hint of hold-your-doubts equivocation.

 

Patchett is a gifted writer, but it must be said that Tom Lake is a one-trick pony, a musing on Our Town, which is itself a play within a play. Tom Lake is thus a skillfully written contrivance with many of Wilder’s characters reborn in Michigan. Score it high on the literary scale but middling for originality.    

 

Rob Weir

Wanderers: An All Too Believable Dystopia?

 

Wanderers (2019)

By Chuck Wendig

Del Rey, 800 pages

★★★★ 

 

 

 

These days it is much easier to imagine human destruction than utopia. The Wanderer is a griping look at dystopia. Chuck Wendig published his novel in 2019, but it proved prescient. Can we imagine a contagion first made manifest in a distant locale that inexorably spreads? Check. Pandemic denial? Check. Paranoic politics? Check. A rogue AI program? Maybe! 

 

It opens in the American Heartlands when Shana’s 15-year-old younger sister Nessie becomes robotic and non-responsive. Attempts to take a blood sample fail because no needle can penetrate her. Nor does she speak, respond to others, or feel anything as she begins her barefoot trek toward some unknown destination. It’s as if she is sleepwalking, but can’t wake up. Before long she is joined by thirty-odd others. They relentlessly march and are dubbed “Walkers.”

 

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has theories but no answers. Enter Benji Ray, an African American fired by the agency for falsifying data to prevent pork contamination. He is unofficially brought back into the fold by former mentor Martin Vargas–to the delight of several former colleagues–not because Vargas trusts him, but because Benji has been selected by Black Swan, an algorithm program (and perhaps more). When the CDC fails to detect an immediate cause, the Internet conspiracy machine kicks into high gear. Bio terrorists? Foreigners? A science experiment gone wrong? Attention-seeking fakes? The only thing known for certain is that attempts to impede the Walkers causes them to explode–literally.

 

As others succumb to the mystery ailment, still another crazed theory arises, a government conspiracy that adherents insist is what one might expect when a woman, Nora Hunt, is the President of the United States. That’s the official line of Fox News and red-meat Republicans who push for a military solution. The Walkers, though, are accompanied by Shepherds, human-shield friends and family of the afflicted, as well as potential caretakers should they wake up. As the Walkers’ numbers increase, Matthew Bird, an Indiana preacher, adds backwoods religion to the equation. Bird is an unknown until Ozark Stover, a survivalist/white supremacist, turns the reverend into a media sensation. Bird embraces his instant fame and dubs the Walkers the “Devil’s Pilgrims.” Stover is determined to obliterate the Walkers in a metaphorical showdown at the O.K. Corral. Time is not on the side of the CDC, as even President Hunt, who is getting clobbered in the polls, is willing to turn the matter over to Homeland Security if the contagion isn’t stopped. In essence, we have a battle between science and politics. Sound familiar? Check.

 

Wanderers is a nail-biting drama that riffs off contemporary history, including Trumpism. It is a long novel in part because Wendig interweaves personal stories. The Shepherds are joined by Marcy Reyes, a former cop whose life is a mess, but seems to draw energy and strength from the Walkers. They are also joined, for dubious reasons, by a cynical pop punk/hard rock musician, Shana has issues to resolve with her father, several love affairs blossom, Bird finds himself estranged from his wife and son, and Benji learns that the contagion predates the Walkers. Meanwhile, Stover begins to mobilize his militia, many of whom are anxious to discredit Hunt and the non-white team that dominates the investigation, including Sadie, Black Swan’s inventor. Time is literally running out. There are 1,024 Walkers, but for others the contagion is fatal and the end of the Anthropocene is a distinct possibility.

 

But what of Black Swan? What indeed. And why are the Walkers inexorably marching toward Ouray, Colorado, a played out mining town of fewer than a thousand people?  Is Black Swan the cause of the contagion, a solution, or something else entirely? Wendig’s complex narrative even veers toward the simulation hypothesis–a postulate that is both ancient and recent–that ponders whether human beings are inside a construct controlled by some external force. Wendig’s twist is to suggest connections to quantum entanglement, but mostly Wanderers is a tale of pandemonium, confirmation bias, and the myriad ways in which humans find it easier to scapegoat than cooperate.

 

Wendig owes debts to past apocalyptic novels such as Alas, Babylon; The Andromeda Strain; Cloud Atlas; The Dog Stars; Oryx and Crate; The Road; Station Eleven; and even Mary Shelley’s The Last Man. I suppose we must concede: Dystopia rules.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunana: A Sweet and Marvelous Film

 

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019)

Directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji

Films Boutique, 109 minutes, PG

In Dzongkha with subtitles

★★★★★

 

 

 

 

I tagged this charming film in my end-of-2022 roundup as among my favorite viewing experiences. It was the first film from Bhutan ever nominated for an Oscar. It didn’t win and more’s the pity, as it has delighted audiences around the globe, a place that apparently doesn’t include Hollywood.

 

If you don’t know much about Bhutan, it’s a landlocked nation of 727,145 nestled in the Himalayans between India and China. Nearly 90 percent of the Bhutanese are Buddhists, which helps explain why it’s the world’s most peaceful nation and the least corrupt. But it speaks volumes that among its major exports are root crops and a caterpillar-like fungus used in Chinese traditional medicine.

 

About 15 percent of the population lives in Thimphu, the capital and closest thing there is to a metropolis. That’s where we find Ugyen (Sherab Dorji*). All Bhutanese citizens must do national service and Ugyen owes another year. He’s a slacker who prefers to hang out with his friends and perform in local pubs. His big plan is to move to Australia to become a singer. Because he has been lackluster in previous placements, he is handed a teaching posting in Lunana, home to the world’s most remote school. With just 800 people, it doesn’t have much of anything else except yak herders. It’s an exhausting several day drive and hike from Thimpu with an overnight stop in a hotel I doubt you’ll wish to reserve on hotels.com.

 

His hiking guide Michen (Ugyen Norbu Lendup) promises him he will take him back down if he doesn’t like the village. Ugyen takes one look at Lunana and wants to return immediately, though Michen and village leader Asha Jinpa (Kunzang Wangdi) convince him the mules must rest. He beds down in his quarters, which make the wayside hotel look posh. The wind blows constantly and there is only yellowed paper on the windows. Ugyen crawls into his sleeping bag and falls deeply asleep. Imagine his surprise when a cheerful mite named Pem Zam awakes him, announces herself the class captain, and leads him to the school.

 

He has prepared nothing, but is surprised to find a roomful of attendant students awaiting instruction. I once taught in a resources-poor school, but Lunana takes the cake. Lunana’s school consists of crudely-made adjoined wooden desks, no chalk, no chalkboard, no paper, and no supplies of any sort. Nor does Ugyen have any cellphone coverage, though where he thought he’d plug it in is anyone’s guess. He dismisses the class and promises to come prepared the next day. You can probably predict where all this is heading, but how it gets there will warm your heart better than the dried yak dung locals use for heating and cooking.

 

Several things melt Ugyen’s cynicism. The landscape is breathtakingly beautiful, he feels sorry for the kids, and locals treat him with more respect than he has ever known. Asha insists he was probably a yak in a previous life, a huge compliment! Ugyen also hears a song wafting from the hill behind the school sung by Asha’s niece Saldon (Kelden Lhamo Gurung). Saldon teaches him “Yak Labi Lhadar,” the song he heard, and the fact that she’s easy on the eyes also makes Lunana seem more tolerable. There are numerous amusing city boy in the mountains moments, but we also watch Ugyen come into his own as a creative teacher who helps his students learn math, English, and Dzongkha, Bhutan’s official language.

 

Is there really a yak in the classroom? Yes, and its name is Norbu. Grateful villagers gave it to Ugyen so he can collect his own dung for heat! He keeps it in the classroom because it’s too cold for Norbu to be outside, so why not use the yak in lesson plans? As winter approaches, though, Ugyen cannot stay in Lunana. He will make his way to Australia and sing in a bar where no one pays any attention until he dusts off a special song. Bet you know what it is.

 

You must watch this film as my words cannot express what a gem it is. Call it a thin-air take on Conrack. And if you don’t think Pem Zam is adorable and steals the show, seek help!

 

Rob Weir

 

* No relation to the director; Dorji is a common Bhutanese surname.

The Other Half: Life and Death Among the Upper Class

 

 

THE OTHER HALF (2023)

By Charlotte Vassell

Anchor Books, 368 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that the rich “are different from you and me.” British novelist Charlotte Vassell focuses on a group that’s not a literal other half–more like the top 1-5 percent. She opens big with a small sentence: “A girl is dying.”

 

The suspects in The Other Half are those turning 30 who met at Oxford and have cultivated the belief that they are superior to those beneath them. They wear bespoke shirts and discourse on the best place to buy suits and designer threads. Rupert Achilles de Courcy Beauchamp decides to mark his 30^th at a McDonald’s by throwing money at the staff, commandeering the second floor, making fun of the food, and trashing the place. Don’t imagine for a second the party invitees feel guilty about leaving a mess for wage earners to clean.

 

The Oxfordians are also arch–Clemence “Clemmie” O’Hara is called “Phlegm” behind her back–spend more on a lunch than some working-class families spend on groceries in a month, use designer drugs (MDMA), hold down “jobs” such as artist, influencer, and private equity manager, and have solicitors and contacts in high places to get them out of scrapes. But what if one of them is guilty of murder?

 

Vassell throws a lot of names at us early on, but the story eventually settles on a handful of the rich: Rupert, Clemmie, Alex(andros) Adonis, and Araminta “Minty” Gaunt. They are beautiful in style and looks, though perhaps the most lovely of all is the one who did not come from money, went to Oxford with loads of scholarship money, and needs to work for her keep. Helena “Nell” Waddington, is bookish, red-haired, and the object of desire of both Alex and Rupert. The latter is a problem as Rupert and Clemmie have dated and/or cohabited for ten years. Alex and Nell have come to see Rupert as a pompous, amoral jerk, but he’s also irresistible in many ways, not the least is that he's filthy rich and in line to inherit a title as soon as an elderly uncle has the decency to expire. Nell prefers Alex, but Rupert dangles a lot in front of a young woman of limited means and promises he’s about to dump Clemence who, to be fair, shows outward signs of being an airhead.

 

The real “other half” of the novel is represented by the law enforcement team seeking to crack a murder case that keeps leading them back into social circles well above their paygrades. Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp has the same last name as Rupert, and is light-skinned enough to pass for white (or maybe Mediterranean), but was raised in a Jamaican fundamentalist Baptist family before becoming a cop and losing his religion (and probably his French girlfriend). He pronounces his surname “Bo’ champ;” Rupert snippily informs his last name is pronounced  “Beecham.”

 

Caius’ partners are Detective Sgt. Matt Cheung, who is half British and half Asian, and Detective Constable Amy Noakes, who finds her male partners’ assumptions partly sexist and partly hilarious. Caius and Matt are the book’s comic relief. Caius is on a self-improvement kick in which he reads weighty tomes, tortures himself with exercise, and tries to convince himself that a vegan diet is good for him. Matt is the devil on his shoulder tempting him with junk food, meat, pastries, and other such things. He also makes sure Caius doesn’t become a Gloomy Gus. The Caius/Matt pairing also serves to show how ethnicity matters if you’re not rich, but is pushed under the rug if you are.

 

You’ve heard the expression “to die for love.” The Other Half hinges on whether someone would kill for it. The book is filled with deplorable people–and I’ve not even gotten into imperious art historian Dr. Fay Bruce Osbald–but does snobbery and doing tone deaf things make someone a killer? Vassell keeps us guessing by moving back and forth between plebeian spaces–the police station, roadside pubs, small flats–and upper crust galleries, estates, clubs, and oh-so-fashionable Bloomsbury.  

 

The Other Half suffers a bit from having too many unlikable characters; not even Nell passes muster as someone for whom we should root. Vassell’s London doesn’t come off well either; it’s either “dirty” or indefensibly posh. But I will say that Vassell kept me off guard and that I did not predict what was coming.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

The Critic: A Tasty Past Vintage

 

The Critic (2007)

By Peter May

Riverrun Books, 388 pages

★★★★

 

 

 

Here’s another gem from the League of Women Voters Book Sale. Scottish mystery writer Peter May is probably best known for The Lewis Trilogy, but his best known investigator is the half-Italian/half-Scottish (Lor)Enzo Alexander Macleod. The Critic was just May’s second what would eventually be a seven-book Enzo series. Each can stand alone, so sequential reading is not necessary.

 

In it I saw both May’s early promise and how he quickly evolved. The Critic is set in southern France where Enzo seeks to reopen a cold case involving the disappearance of Gil Perry after a recent book poses the possibility of foul play. Perry was a wine critic so influential that his ratings could make or break a vineyard. He was last seen in the Occitan/Languedoc region of southern France.

 

Local gendarme Daniel Roussel thinks that’s rubbish and holds a typical distrust of outsiders. Small wonder in Macleod’s case. He’s in his 50s, divorced, semi-estranged from his children, sports a ponytail, and hasn’t exactly been hitting the gym. What could a man such as he know about wine or reviving a cold case. Quite a bit actually; Macleod speaks fluent French and knows his wines. More to the point, he knows even more about forensics, which he teaches at the University of Toulouse, though locals distrust that sort of thing even more than foreigners.

 

The nearby towns of Albi and Cahors were once the center of the Albigensian heresy of the 13^th century, but you’d not guess that given how tradition-bound it became, especially in its chauvinistic attitudes about wine. Laurent de Bonneval, for instance, is a key leader in l’Ordre de la Dive Bouteille. He’s so devoted to natural wines that he can hardly mention American vintages without spitting because he believes they contain synthetic yeast. You can imagine what he and other farmers think of Enzo, who rents a farm gîte (furnished unit) under the easily blown cover that he’s there for wine and rest. When the owners find out his real agenda, they want him gone though they need the extra income more than they dislike Enzo and the way he rearranged a farm wall.

 

Enzo certainly isn’t getting in a lot of relaxation, but he does his best to consume numerous local bottles. Enzo cast smore suspicion when Nicole Lefeuille, one of his students, shows up to assist, locals jump to conclusions when they notice her large breasts and youth. Yes, this really is a conservative part of France! Actually, Nicole is more interested in Fabien Marre, one of Enzo’s top suspects, and has no problem telling Enzo her extracurriculars fall into the MYOB category. He fears she’s in grave danger, but one of the intriguing things about Macleod is how often he gets things wrong.

 

Besides, his own complicated affairs of the heart don’t provide much moral high ground. When his daughters appear, he takes an instant dislike to Kirsty’s boyfriend Roger. Okay, Roger did once sleep with Enzo’s on again/off again girlfriend Charlotte, so that’s creepy. Still,  Kirsty isn’t about to submit to lectures from a papa who’s not above putting the moves on a married female judge. Macleod has reservations about daughter Sophie’s boyfriend as well; Bertrand looks like a Mohawked punk rocker, but it turns out he is a wine supertaster. Many are the egoists who think they can tell vintages, types of grapes, the soils in which they were grown, distinct smells, and the “notes” of wines (pear, vanilla, stone, old leather, etc.), but only a very small number of supertasters can actually do so. The missing Gil Perry was another. 

 

What’s a mystery without a few pickled bodies? Ancient hatreds, jealousy, fear, tragedy, coded ratings, and forensics all come into play before Enzo muddles his way to the bottom (in more ways than one) of the situation. The Critic has a few misfires, such as what’s-under-the-kilt jokes that were shopworn even in 2007, clichéd beat-the-clock escapes, and a maudlin backstory involving a dog, but it’s a book you’ll find yourself plowing through in a few sittings because of May’s facility in building suspense. It would be apt if you felt compelled to have a glass of wine or two while reading. No California plonk, though.

 

Rob Weir

 

Note: The book contained a phrase from Rabelais that I love: “I have nothing. I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.”  

World's End: A T.C. Boyle Classic

World’s End (1987)

By T. C. Boyle

Penguin, 456 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

I enjoy going to League of Women Voters book sales: 50 cents-$1 for paperbacks and two bucks for a hardcover. At a recent sale in Amherst I scored a few titles from favorite authors and works of others I’ve been meaning to read.

 

One of the latter is T.C. Boyle whose World's End was a PEN/Faulkner winner. The back blurb promises, “Walter Van Brunt is about to have a collision with history.” And how!  World's End is a sprawling novel that starts in the 17th century and wends its way through the 1960s, all with an eye toward helping Walter uncover his father's role during the “Peterskill” riots of 1949 (Peekskill thinly disguised) Local thugs, American Legion toughs, the KKK, and coopted cops broke up a licensed concert sponsored by then-legal American communists. Had not luck prevailed, more than bloody noses and broken bones would have occurred. One of the mob’s objectives was to lynch African American singer Paul Robeson.

 

It seems a stretch to locate the roots of 20^th century history in 1663, but Boyle is a weaver of connections who wants us to consider what things are bred in the bone. Most of the book is set in New York's Hudson River Valley, but it also detours to the Netherlands and Alaska, involves Native-American tribes, social class conflict, racism, feuding families, and missing limbs. (Yep, missing limbs!)

 

Boyle included a cast of characters for each of the time periods, which you’ll need as 61 play important roles. Unless you grew up in New York State, you might not know it was a Dutch colony for 30 years before the English took control. Dutch influence is why some of New York’s most powerful families bear surnames such Van Buren, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Roosevelt.

 

Most of the novel’s Dutch protagonists are of lesser fame –though Peter Stuyvesant of Manhattan island notoriety gets some play–but they were part of a drama pitting highborn against lowborn. Walter's kin were among the latter, tenant farmers and pioneers who intermarried with Kitchawank (Algonquin) natives, and paid the price if they crossed Van Wart patroons, Dutch office holders, or their allies.

 

You can get bogged down in the names and unfamiliar political dynamics, but Boyle delivers a history lesson that is left out of most textbooks. This is especially case of the Kitchawank, many of whom were mixed bloods of shifting loyalties but increasingly Europeanized lifestyles. Not that that's saying much, as lowborn Dutch lived both close to nature and close to the vest. To simplify, clashes between the Van Warts and the Van Brunts shaped Walter’s life two centuries before he was born. Not that Walter is a prince in the 1960s or even a decent person. It's also the case that the Van Warts are not as mighty as they once were, yet still considered themselves to be. Bred in the bone?

 

Doyle's book is an American tragedy, so not too many characters wear untarnished armor. His countercultural males are largely unwashed, unrealistic, and sexist to the core. The exception is that Boyle has sympathy for the crew of the Arcadia trying to clean up the polluted Hudson. (He is so obviously alluding to the sloop Clearwater and Pete Seeger that one wonders why he bothered with such disguises.) The crew might be the only folks in the book with altruistic motives, no matter what detractors thought of their politics.

 

Walter and others will indeed collide with history.  Such crashes take a toll even if the parties survive (and not all will.) Walter's dilemma, like that of his ancestor Wouter, is an old one that resonates today: Do we repeat history or change it? Do we take a stand or bend the knee? It was happenstance that the Peekskill riots factored into World's End, but I certainly drew comparisons to the January 6th rioters who chose base motives over democratic ones.

 

Boyle’s book was written 36 years ago when the general public's reading habits were more sophisticated and patient than they are today. As such, Boyle saw no need to compromise between literary style and storytelling. It takes time to sort characters, untangle the historical threads, and immerse yourself in the narrative, but it's worth it.

 

Rob Weir

 

Note: The cover is adorned with a wooden shoe, a nod to the Dutch, but also a sly reference to sabots from whence we get the word sabotage. In the early 1800s artisans threatened with job loss hurled sabots into machines.

 

All Quiet on the Western Front Deromanticizes War

 

 

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Directed by Edward Berger

Netflix, 147 minutes, R (violence, gore, disturbing images)

In German (Subtitles but some versions dubbed)

★★★★★

 

I read All Quiet on the Western Front when I was in high school. It, the Vietnam War, and the Quakers turned me into a pacifist. Later I saw both the 1930 and 1979 film versions of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic  novel, but the 2022 remake tops them all. The novel and the various films are the most powerful antiwar statements ever produced. The latest film, directed by Edward Berger, won all manner of prizes, including four Oscars.

 

Some ducked it because it is so gruesome. To such people I say that it drives home the absolute obscenity of war and moves us beyond the hero dreams of military recruiters, braggadocio generals, and pandering politicians. If you don’t like what you see on the screen, watch how you vote and don’t let your children become soldiers. Every element you see on the screen is a logical outcome of war and each justification for combat is hollow.

 

Seventeen-year-old Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) is the protagonist of All Quiet on the Western Front, one of millions of lambs sent to the slaughter who fell for the patriotic claptrap of the German high command during the waning days of World War I. He is a fresh-faced postal delivery boy lured into uniform along with three of his best friends.  The lie is on from the outset, old uniforms boiled to remove the blood, sewn to close the bullet holes, and (most of) the tags removed that identified the deceased former wearers. It’s 1917 and trench warfare has stalemated to the point where waves of young men charge across bomb-pocked landscapes filled with barbed wire, dead horses, corpses, and water-and-blood filled craters. The insanity of youths being machine-gunned, blown apart, bayoneted, set afire, and gassed to secure a few hundred meters of land is on full display. So too is life inside the trenches: sucking mud, excrement, sniper fire, flares, bunker-blasting bombs, and the grim task of collecting dog tags from the dead when there’s a lull in the fighting.

 

There are hundreds of ways to die. Albert Kropp is roasted by a flamethrower and Tjaden Stackfleet stabs himself in the throat with a fork rather than endure amputation (and, in all likelihood, sepsis). Paul will loses his comrades but befriends “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch), an older soldier who becomes a big brother of sorts. As you might predict, graveyard humor, dreams of women, and talk of a postwar future that few will live to see dominate trench conversation. That is, when they are not too emotionally drained to speak. One of the ways that one tries to deal with the horror is to become a stoic killing machine that can shoot another human being at pointblank range, smash a skull with a rock, or repeatedly stab someone, move on to the next victim, and avoid becoming one yourself. When you find a room of 60 dead new recruits who died because they prematurely removed their gas mask, you but shrug.

 

The ultimate craziness, as Paul and Kat survive into 1918, is that German politicians know the war has been lost­–U.S. entry into the conflict tipped the scales–but try convincing the Kaiser of that or fanatics such as General Friedrichs (Daniel Striesow). The German state secretary Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) is trying his best to end the war, but he’s getting no cooperation from French General Fuchs (Thibault de Montalembert) on ending the carnage. Fuchs has the winning hand and knows it; he gives the Germans 72 hours to accept unconditional surrender involving major land concessions and won’t listen to pleas that a victor’s peace could lead to a future war. (Think fascism and World War II.)

 

The accord is signed and, as you might know, the war ended at 11 am on November 11: 11/11/11. Ahh, but what about that 72-hour period before the armistice took hold? Do you think a sanguinary monster such as Friedrichs will tell his troops to chill? He’s perfectly willing to send hundreds of young men to their graves if he can claim a “glorious” victory. Remember the line from Apocalypse Now: “The horror! The horror!”

 

All Quiet on the Western Front is brilliant filmmaking in the service of warning us against such horror: the cinematography of James Friend, the creepy soundtrack of Volker Bertelmann, the make-up artistry of Heike Merker, and Berger’s uncompromising don’t-look-away direction. Too much horror? Did you think war is pretty?

 

Rob Weir