THE BLACK OBELISK – ERICH MARIA REMARQUE

“The Black Obelisk” (1956) is the most “philosophical” novel of Erich Maria Remarque, the concentration of all the ideological content of the work of the famous German writer. The concept of “farewell to illusions”, inherent in the texts of representatives of the “lost generation”, runs through the book. Like most of Remarque’s works, The Black Obelisk is highly autobiographical. The focus is on ordinary people who suffer the collapse of familiar attitudes and rules in a post-war world. There are almost no unequivocally positive and negative characters here – the reader evaluates and defines the characters himself. “The Black Obelisk” is a novel about how to remain human in the intolerable conditions of an inhumane society, fascist barbarism, which is gradually enveloping interwar Germany, for which Remarque aches so much.