I agree with a fellow jungerian critic (I mistakenly deleted the posting) of Guenther Grass novel as a piece of junk.
Julius Evola's commenting on this genre says: The reading of the so-called war novels written by E.M. Remarque(especially All is Quiet on the Western Front) reveals the contrast between the patriotic idealism and rhetoric on the one hand and the realistic results of the experience of the war among european youth. an italian officer, in the aftermath of W.W.I wrote: "When a war is seen at the distance it may have idealistic and knightly overtones for the enthusiastic souls and some sort of choreographic beauty for the aesthetes. It is necessary that future generations learn from our generation that there is no fascination more false and no legend more grotesque than that which attributes to war any virtue or influence on progress, and an education that is not based on cruelty, revolution and brutishness. Once stripped of her magical attractive features, bellona is more disgusting than Alcina , and the youth who died in her arms have shivered in horror at her touch. But we had to go to war." V. Coda, Dalla Bainsizza al Piave. It was only in the earlier works of Enst Juenger , inspired by his personal experiences as a soldier in the German Army, that we have again the idea that this process may change polarity and that the more destructive aspects of modern technological war may condition a superior type of man, beyond the patriotic and "idealistic" rhetoric as well as beyond humanitarism and antimilitarism. (Julius Evola, Revolt Against The Modern World) C. Mancini
