Classic story translated by Stirling academic
A Stirling academic has followed up his translation of a classic novel about World War One from the original German with that of its sequel.
Emeritus Professor of German at Stirling University Brian Murdoch translated ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque in the early 1990s and has now completed his translation of the follow-up novel ‘The Way Back’.
First published in 1929, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ deals with the horror of life in the trenches, soldiers’ disillusionment and their difficulty re-adjusting to civilian life.
‘The Way Back’ was published in 1931. It also explored through different characters the problems soldiers had in re-integrating after returning from the front.
Both works were subsequently banned by the Nazi regime as they were considered ‘degenerate’ or anti-German.
Professor Murdoch said: “I think [The Way Back] is an important novel. Wars do not stop when there is an armistice or treaty – certainly the First World War did not.
“The soldiers in all the armies who survived had to struggle to find their way back into everyday life, and Remarque shows young men who had missed out on their late teens, and older, married men, all struggling.
“In Germany, things were difficult politically too and the last scene of the work shows the former soldiers horrified by a group of young lads playing at soldiers. The work is set in 1919, but it was written just before the rise of Hitler and the new military developments. I think it needs to be read together with ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’”
Professor Murdoch (75) lives in Cambuskenneth with his wife Ursula, a former teacher at Dunblane High School. He lectured at Stirling University for much of his career and retired 10 years ago.
He has edited or translated about 40 books, most recently the Greek myth ‘The Reception of the Legend of Hero and Leander’ – dedicated to his three-year-old granddaughter Lizzie – which was published this year.
Since retirement, he has been writing books and articles, translating, reviewing for scholarly journals and publishers and continuing research.
He has long been interested in the literature of the World War One and Remarque in particular.
Professor Murdoch said: “I wrote a couple of articles about Remarque more than 20 years ago and I was invited by the publishers to produce a new translation of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ which appeared in 1994.
“I was especially interested in the sequel to ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ because Remarque himself thought it was important.
“‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was very successful of course, and one of the things it stressed was the comradeship between the soldiers.
“Remarque was worried that people might draw the conclusion that war was a good thing, so he showed in the sequel all that comradeship breaking down as the surviving soldiers tried to make their way in the postwar world.”
‘The Way Back’, translated by Brian Murdoch, is published by Vintage Classics priced £9.99.