The Armistice Day remembrances in France made me think of one of the greatest anti-war novels of all-time, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front. It is not genre and/or pulp fiction but it has had many paperback incarnations over the years.
The 1930 film starring Lew Ayres won Best Picture and Director Oscars, It also had a swell poster:
I remember reading that book in school. The descriptions of soldiers hunkering down to wait out a saturation bombardment left a horrifyingly indelible image in my mind that has persisted for my entire life. What a terrifying thought, to just crouch there powerless beneath the iron rain, knowing that the next shell might land right next to you, and that you can do nothing whatsoever about it.
That story informed my early assessments of the ugliness and wastefulness of war, in juxtaposition with the nightly news’ Vietnam “body counts”.