The Return of the Spirit

This comic novel, written in 1927 and published in 1933, is generaly regarded as the first major novel in Arabic and according to literary critic Hamdi Sakkut “the first Egyptian novel which can sustain comparison with Western works”. Set in Cairo, it begins with the influenza pandemic of 1918 and ends with the revolution of March 1919. The central character, Muhsin, is living with his father's brothers and sister in Cairo while attending school. His parents live near Damanhur in the Nile delta. Muhsin’s a young dreamer who falls in love with the girl across the street but he also senses ideals of solidarity with his uncles (“all grouped together in one room, one bed beside the next”) and sympathy for the workers on his father’s estate (“He began to look at them and at their faces in wonder. Their features and expressions all conveyed the same sense. Despite their differences, they seemed a single person with regard to this sense of work and hope”). In the revolution, Muhsin’s “powerful emotions” are “transformed into a general patriotism that dominated his whole being and made him oblivious to everything else, even his personal safety in these dangerous circumstances”.

The author, Tawfiq al-Hakim (born 9 October 1898), was born in Alexandria and like the central character of this novel had a Turkish mother. Another thing consistent with the novel is that he moved to Cairo to live with his uncles while he received his secondary education. He studied law in Cairo, then Paris and began writing plays there — he also wrote this play-like novel there. He returned to Cairo in 1928 and came to prominence with the first performance of his plays and the publication of two novels in 1933. Though primarily active as a playwright, he went on to write two more novels and two collections of short stories. Many of his important works were written in response to major political events, including the revolution of July 1952.

The central character, along with several other characters, becomes enfatuated with Saniya, the girl across the street. Her father, Dr Hilmi, speaks with pride about his career in the army. When asked whether he had fought in the Battle of Omdurman in Sudan in 1898, he boasts:
“Omdurman and others... That's well known! I've seen combat. I'm not just a doctor; I'm a soldier!”
Likewise, when there is a suggestion that Saniya’s flirtatious behaviour might bring disgrace on the family, he argues about his reputation:
“I'm a man who has always lived honorably. I've served in the Sudan and seen combat.”

The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma

This satirical novel, published in 1932, was one of the most successful Polish novels of the interwar period. (I read this in Google translation — it turned up some oddities but I have studied Polish part-time for a few years and was able to get my head around many of those peculiar renderings). The central character, Nicodemus Dyzma, has come to Warsaw from a small town in eastern Poland in the hope of finding employment. He stumbles across an invitation to a high-class party and decides to go along for the food. At the party he impresses a wealthy landowner who offers him the job of manager of his estate. Through his opportunism, often ruthless, Dyzma becomes more and more influential and almost lands the job of prime minister. Official rumour has it that he was educated at Oxford but he's unable to speak English!

The author, Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz (born 10 August 1898), grew up in the Polish village of Okuniewo in what is today Belarus. He went to secondary school in Wilno (today the Lithuanian capital Vilnius) and then to university in Kiev. In 1918 he moved to Warsaw and served in the army during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921. After he was demobilised in 1922, he began writing for newspapers and in 1925 he started work as a journalist on the Warsaw daily Rzeczpospolita (Republic). Soon he had some short stories published and they proved popular. He quit journalism to devote his time to writing fiction. His first novel was published in 1930 and after the success of The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma, he became prolific and prosperous as a novelist. On the outbreak of the Second World War he was mobilised and was commanding officer defending a bridge at Kuty in southeastern Poland when he was killed in action on 20 September 1939.

Although the central character has fairly innocent intentions at the start of the novel, he becomes more menacing as he becomes corrupted by his increasing power and influence. In Chapter 13, fearing his political status is in danger, his hired hitmen murder an opponent with brutal violence:
“He was hit with a powerful blow by a solid fist to his nose and upper lip. At the same time he received a blow to the back of the head and a strong kick to the stomach... He cried out and rolled into the gutter...
The attackers, however, didn't consider their work to be done. One leaned over the fallen and banged his fists into the stomach and chest; the other ran up and with his heels kicked two terrible blows into the face... He clicked open his folding knife and silently pushed the long, broad blade into the body. Once, twice, three times.” The medical examination of the body reported “death due to puncture of the heart with a sharp instrument... and due to blood loss and skull fractures. As a result of “the complete crushing of the face” it proved difficult to determine the identity of the victim. The ability to carry out such severe violence without compunction was probably learnt in war.

Generals Die in Bed

This searing novel, published in 1930, is set among Canadian forces on the Western Front. It is dedicated to “bewildered youths — British, Australian, Canadian and German — who [on 8 August 1918] were killed in [a] wood a few miles beyond Amiens”. The narrator is a young soldier and he describes the frontline experience of his unit, beginning in September 1917. By the end of the novel (the Battle of Amiens) only one of his immediate comrades has survived along with him.

The author, Charles Yale Harrison (born 16 June 1898), was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Montreal, Quebec. Keen to write, he began working for the Montreal Star at the age of 16. He enlisted in the 244th Overseas Battalion of the Canadian Over-seas Expeditionary Force in January 1917 and served with the Royal Montreal Regiment on the Western Front. He was wounded in action on the first day of the Battle of Amiens. Working as a journalist on the Bronx Home News in New York, his first novel (this one) was initially published in serialised portions in various American and German periodicals. It subsequently sold well in book form following on the success of All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms. He went on to write four more novels as well as several works of non-fiction.

In a central event of the novel, the narrator has volunteered for a raid on an opposition trench. During this action, he kills a German soldier with his bayonet. Later, when on leave in London, he tells a woman about this:
“I am a criminal. Did I ever tell you that I committed murder?
It was some time ago. I came into a place where any enemy of mine was and I stabbed him and ran off.”
The word murder is again used toward the end of the novel. A brigadier-general has addressed the troops about the sinking of the Llandovery Castle, a hospital ship for Canadian soldiers. He urges them to take revenge in the forthcoming battle. The battle produces devastating casualties on both sides. When the narrator is being evacuated, an orderly tells him at Boulogne about the Llandovery Castle:
“That was bloody murder, brother. Our officers ought to be shot for that. She was carryin' supplies and war material.” (in other words, they had deliberately turned a hospital ship into a probable target for a strategic attack).

Jungle

This novel, published in 1930, is largely set on a rubber plantation in a remote part of Amazonia. The central character, Alberto, a law student, has come to live in exile with his uncle in Brazil, having been involved in a monarchist uprising against the republican regime in Portugal. Tiring of supporting his unemployed nephew, his uncle arranges for Alberto to join a contingent of recruits bound for a rubber plantation on the Madeira River, one of the major tributaries of the Amazon. There he's introduced to rubber tapping and to the debt bondage system operated by Juca Tristão, the plantation owner. His experience of the rubber plantation, ironically called Paraíso (Paradise), forces him to re-evaluate his understanding of justice. At the end of the novel, he concludes that in his future career “his voice could not formulate fine speeches for the prosecution... his conscience and his doubts would rise up and stifle him”; instead he thought it likely he would “devote himself to civil law... or become counsel for the defence — only for the defence”.

The author, José Maria Ferreira de Castro (born 24 May 1898), spent his early childhood near Oporto in northern Portugal. He emigrated to Brazil aged 12. His first novel was published in 1916. He spent four years working on a rubber plantation on the Madeira River and this inspired this novel. He returned to Portugal in the 1920s and worked as a journalist. He went on to write a large body of fiction as well as travelogue. This novel was translated into English by Charles St Lawrence Duff (born Enniskillen, 7 April 1894). He was educated at The King’s Hospital, Dublin and was a prolific author, linguist and translator.

Towards the end of the novel, the author gives an overview of the devaluating rubber economy in the context of recent history:
“As rubber had lost greatly in value, the prodigious elasticity of the dream of greatness and revival had reached a limit. The great European War had come as a generator of cherished hopes which soon disappeared before the certainty that the material employed for killing men in Europe would not by a scarcity in the supplies of rubber bring back to life the men buried in the jungle of Amazonas. The development of the North American industry had come and millions of pneumatic tyres were bursting daily all over the world — and yet the loss in value was a fact, like an inevitable curse.”

All Quiet on the Western Front

This classic novel was first published as a book in 1929, having been serialised in the Berlin newspaper Vossische Zeitung newspaper in the winter of 1928. An English translation by Arthur Wheen was published in 1929 and was immediately successful, leading to the production of a film for which Lewis Milestone won the 1930 Academy Award for best director. Set between 1917 and 1918, the novel’s central character, Paul Bäumer, has been sent, aged 18, to the Western Front along with several of his classmates. The novel describes the psychological and physical suffering of German soldiers during the turmoil of trench warfare. It reveals how poorly nourished German soldiers were compared to the enemy forces on the Western Front, there being hardly any protein in their diet towards the end of the war and with much of the processed food making them sick. (“We are emaciated and starved. Our food is bad and mixed up with so much substitute stuff that it makes us ill.”)

The author, Erich Remarque (born 22 June 1898), grew up in Osnabrück. He began writing his first novel at the age of 16 and it was published in 1920. He was conscripted into the army at the age of 18 and in June 1917 was sent with the 2nd Guards Reserve Division to Hem-Lenglet in northern France. From there he was posted to the 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment, 2nd Company, Engineer Platoon Bethe, operating between Torhout and Houthulst in northwest Belgium. He was wounded by shrapnel on 31 July and invalided back to Germany for the remainder of the war. After the war he worked for 14 months as a primary school teacher prior to the launch of his literary career. He had written three novels prior to writing this war epic. It was quickly followed by a sequel, The Road Back, which chronicles the experience of soldiers on their return to Germany after the war. His writings were condemned by the Nazi authorities and he lived in exile — first in Switzerland, then in the United States — throughout the period of Nazi rule. His absence did not stop them from attacking him: they executed his sister Elfriede in December 1943, the judge stating that her brother might be out of reach but that she would not be able to  escape them. The author only heard of her killing at the end of the war. He returned to Switzerland in 1948 and remained there for the rest of his life, writing a further seven novels.


The narrator and central character, like many who described the Western Front, often recognises the beauty of nature amidst the horror of the battlefield. Before going up to the front, he gives this idyllic account of the base five miles from the action:
“We hear the muffled rumble of the front only as very distant thunder, bumblebees droning by quite drown it. Around us stretches the flowery meadow. The grasses sway their tall spears; the white butterflies flutter around and float on the soft warm wind of the late summer.”
In the summer of 1918 he tells of  “the red poppies in the meadows round our billets, the smooth beetles on the blades of grass, the warm evenings in the cool, dim rooms, the black, mysterious trees of the twilight, the stars and the flowing waters”.
In contrast to this, he describes the inevitable destruction of the young recruits:
“Their pale turnip faces, their pitiful clenched hands, the fine courage of these poor devils, the desperate charges and attacks made by the poor brave wretches, who are so terrified that they dare not cry out loudly, but with battered chest, with torn bellies, arms and legs only whimper softly for their mothers and cease as soon as one looks at them.”
This narrative is intensely lyrical and sharply devastating almost on every page. Each chapter is satisfyingly profound and at the same time traumatically exhausting to read.