Customer Reviews

The Black Obelisk

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This novel isn't for everyone but it is my favorite. Remarque does a wondrous job creating vivid characters in a small German city in the early 20s. Hyper-inflation, depression and a nation in despair after the humiliation and torment of the Great War, are well told themes. Ludwig is able to find humor through all this and although there is little plot, there is a great story-line. For me, this novel also explains how the horrible economic conditions could so rile a populace, that the small-minded minority embraces Hitler.

Remarque wrote one of the greatest war novels of all time, told great stories of on the run emigrees, and concentration camp horrors, but this book explains pre-Hitler life and thinking in Germany, and is a must read for any Remarque fan.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. It definitely is a slow read, and really this is the only time I've ever thought of a book as one to be savored. Ludwig, the main character, is sensitive, genuine and astute, with an incredible sense of humor that is often surprising. I was really touched by this book. It exposes people for what they are, as it exposes life in those times. Absolutely incredible, but take it slow.

Remarque is never boring! If you're that ponderous, contemplative type, you'll appreciate EMR's heroes a lot, including Ludwig Bodmer, the "star" of "The Black Obelisk".

The setting is depressing, as is usual in EMR's novels: the inter-war Germany, fresh out of a lost war and in deep economic trouble, yet failing to acknowledge its mistakes and ready to polish its honour once more. Ludwig sells tombstones, not a terribly exciting occupation in itself, yet even more tolling if you have to do it under conditions of severe inflation. But he and his buddies (most notably, Georg Kroll, the shop owner) manage to have a good time despite everything.

The book is funny in places and philosophical in other. Or the both together. The only parts I found a little tedious were Ludwig's (then a.k.a. Rolf, Rudolph, or Ralph) endless dialogues with Isabelle/Genevieve at the mental asylum. But I can see some people liking those, too.

Certainly worth a read.

The economic and political climate in Germany between the world wars and the pathos of an unusual love story make for a great setting. However, often overlooked is the wonderful humor created by the secondary characters in the story. Some of the situations will brings tears to your eyes from laughing. A truly wonderful mix of history, love, and humor,

this is my favorite book of all times. with his bitterwseet narrative skills, remarque's masterpiece has captured this reader's heart. the tragic mixture of life, love, homor and melancholy, he has made a book of unbeliveable character and beauty. this is the story of a man who is lost in a desperate world where loneliness and melancholy are the dominant features- the aftermath of world war 1. in this losing battle he finds warmth and tenderness in the least expected places. yet at those times, the more you have, the more you've got to lose. working as a tomb-stone salesman in a small city in Germany, Ludwig fights to break down the barriers that keep him confined, trapped in the man-made hell that is the Germany of after WW1. his friends, his life, his passions- all created by Remarque add up to make a beautiful masterpiece- a novel of love, life and the passions of those who live it. and in the midst of it all, the humor- the laughter and poetic justice only Remarque's skilled hand can bring into this story of life, and the hopes and dreams that are the kindling of its ever-burning fires.

Remarque certainly knows how to turn cynism into poetry. This book is about an entire people, divided in two after WWI, struggling the every day of survival, trying to go on without letting the situation take to your head. Ludwig's favourite moments in life comes to him when reading the words written to the dead, in the newspaper every day, by the relatives. I read the book in Swedish.

If All Quiet on the Western Front is about those who died, The Black Obelisk is about those who survived. Ludwig has returned home to Germany after the war. He is a stonemason. The company's big order is for a monument to honour the small towns war dead: the black obelisk. The mode of the book is a gentle melancholy. Ludwig survived the trenches, most of his friends died, part of him died with them. Wise beyond his years, he sees how the German's fail to rise up from defeat. Instead they fall to petty bickering, thus setting the stage for the rise of nazism. Instead of being a tribute to those who fell, the black obelisk becomes an ominous pointer to what lies ahead.

After few world war II novels he wrote, Remarque went back to hyper-inflation Weimar Republic in his home town Osnabruck.(although he used different name ,but we know that it's thin disguise). Protagonist of the book is Ludwig Bodmer ; 25 year old war veteran who works in his comrade Georg Kroll's tombstone company. While reading the book, it's not hard to know that Bodmer is no other than Remarque himself and book itself is successful and fabulously rich author's nostalgic auto- biography. Although aspiring to be poet, Ludwig's life is full of every day drab reality which is only worsens time passes mostly by nightmarish and surreal hyper inflation and political unreset derived from it. the only real or unreal part of his life is sunday mass in a local mental asylum where Ludwig works as an organ player for the sake of not only a bottle of wine but also aberration from his trivial existence.
There is a clear demarcation line here between Ludwig's everyday life and his time with inmmate Genevieve Terhoben a.k.a Isabell. Some readers will find the dialogue between two are utterly meaningless and a bit down part of the book however, I find their series of dialogue and Remarque's intentional description of Ludwig's behavior after brief meeing with Isabelle truly makes him more than a writer of "Trivial Literature" ,since there is fairly skillful usage of contrast .Moreover, the part truly evokes the nostalgia and melancholy of lost time. In speaking of Remarque's use of contrast is not limited in Ludwig's life , but also between various charaters. Georg and Heinrich Kroll,Bambus and Hungermann,Isabel and Genevive, Wernicke and Bodendick.

One of the strongest point of this work is its humor and lively but bizzare characters as well as his skill to let characters develop themselves. That really works in this work. the other good point is that the this work encompasses the gamut of "ordinary" German live in a small city during the tumultous time so vividly.There are a couple episode that duly shows how terrible the notorous Weimar inflation was. Irony also works quite well. Shamful urinating of ex-non com Knopf on Black Obelisk symbolizes the true reason of demise of once stable Wilhelmian society .Also,the last deal Ludwig makes on Black Obelisk contains Remarque's sarcasm on modern Germany. The epilogue also shows how Remarque was throughly disillusioned by post-wwII Germany. The book has no prominent plot ,but as I said earlier it does not need any plot, because it was nothing other than the author's auto-biography. It's a very fine work and I strongly believe that it is Remarque's best work. It is unjustly underrated work ,so are all other Remarque's work. Read it. you won't regret .

...Remarque fills several hundred pages with the mostly unconnected activities and ruminations of a large number of residents of a small German city after the defeat of the Kaiser's armies in World War I. But the narrative progression of the novel is to be found not so much in an analysis of what these people do as in how they do it: haphazardly, with the good humor that is born of shared helplessness, and with a mounting sense of alarm that far greater misfortunes are not only thinkable but likely. While the reader may often wonder where the author is headed in this book, the characters themselves and the pathetic state they are in very quickly become compelling preoccupations. Remarque has something very important to say in these pages...He tries to look at the past with objectivity, at the present with an hygienic laugh, and at the future with courage. There are some unsettling aspects to the author's occasional treatment of people as types and stereotypes: military men are always ruthless and blind; the clergy love their wine and monopoly on belief; women are manipulative or confused, or else simply break into tears when they can't understand something. Many readers may be put off by Remarque's standard references to perceived homosocial behavior as belonging to a proposed realm of "pansies" or "fairies," for which his principal characters seem compelled to express disaffection with puzzling regularity. "The Black Obelisk" is a novel written by someone who lived through the time and place with which it deals, and carries with it both the authenticity of personal experience and the limitations of vision to which any generation is subject. But its pages hold the attention, until in the end the hidden vocation of the black obelisk itself is revealed: the novel's title was not ill-chosen. Anyone wishing to delve more deeply into some of the reasons for Hitler's rise to power like an evil rocket flaming into the night sky of German defeat, would do well to examine this book. It does not have the rodeo kick of some of Remarque's more chronologic and plot-oriented novels, but its evocation of an age is clear.

I've read several of Remarque's books (though they can be hard to find), and this is my favorite. It doesn't have the same force as All Quiet on the Western Front but it probably paints the best picture of situations leading to the rise of fascism and WW11 (rampant inflation, Hitler youth). It looks like some of Remarque's books are being re-published - this is one that shouldn't be missed. Remarque is not the greatest writer I've ever read but his stories convey a special realism tinged with a little weariness - and a lot of heart. This is a good read.