Novels of the Great War: "War" by Ludwig Renn
Here is just a quick note about a book we could enlist among the forgotten titles that came after the end of the First World War. "Krieg" by Ludwig Renn was first published in German in 1928. It was immeditaly translated into English by the publisher Martin Secker and a new edition, always with the translation by Willa and Edwin Muir, appeared in the 80s (see here for the editorial history of this title). This novel, available in Spanish and Italian, seems to have low avaibility now in English. The book is autobiographically based on the war experience of the author that becomes therefore author-narrator. The standpoint belongs to a simple soldier and the reason why a rediscovery and new proposal of this book is highly recommendable lays on the straight account of the madness and brutality of war. Like other books released several years after the end of the war, War by Ludwig Renn benefits from all the meditation that stands in between 1918 and 1928: bombast at the minimum level and great simplicity as the tuner of the entire novel (and great engine of dramatic force, too). The book had pretty a good success when it first came out but was probably obscured by other best-sellers soon transformed into the new banner of pacifism. Here below we suggest a short video about the book and a writer that went through all the great wars of the Twentieth century.