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403 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1924
螖喂伪尾维蟽蟿蔚 魏伪喂 蟿畏谓 魏蟻喂蟿喂魏萎 蟽蟿伪 螘位位畏谓喂魏维 蟽蟿喂蟼 .
This is the Greek equivalent of the classic book, by German author Erich Maria Remarque.
Both books are written by novelists who experienced the horrors of WWI firsthand. Maria Remarque on the Western Front, and Stratis Myrivilis on the Macedonian front.
Maria Remarque was fighting for Germany and the Central Powers and Myrivilis was fighting for Greece and the Allied Powers.
But both are anti-war books depicting the absolute horror of WWI and the hellish experience of living in the trenches.
The trenches were literally graves with living people (waiting to die) hence the title of Myrivilis's book
which is taken from a Byzantine troparion (hymn) which is sung
on Good Friday as a lament for Christ's Burial.
But there was no burial for the innocent soldiers who gave their lives to appease abstract ideas of imperialism and nationalism. Innocent young boys who were first brainwashed and then sent to the trenches to die.
Myrivilis's book surprised me because I wasn't expecting from a Greek book, written in 1924 to depict such gore and graphic images, and unfiltered swearing like: shit, whore, wanker.
And I liked it because it showed exactly how dreadful it was for someone living and fighting in the trenches, without euphemisms and soft, filtered language.
Now I think it's time to read Maria Remarque's equally (I'm sure) masterful novel and of course more books by Myrivilis himself.