When I began this book, I did blindly and that’s thanks to my no Remarque experience, no background in war literature, and not even a clue what his writing style was like. All I had was a recommendation from Alcibiades. I trusted the recommendation and got myself a digital copy. You know, I used to think that war novels were just about guns, trenches, and dusty history. I did expect some kind of emotion but I definitely didn’t expect so much beauty.
But, this book punched straight through my chest.
The story begins with two men in Lisbon, Schwarz and the unnamed narrator. They’re refugees, literally strangers to each other, but bound by desperation in a world that’s falling apart. One man offers the other two tickets for a ship, the kind of documents people would sell their souls for during World War II. But he wants something simple in return, to tell his story to the man he’ll be handing the tickets to. Just one night to unburden an entire lifetime.
Why was one night so precious? Why did he need someone, anyone, to hear him? Well that was my first clue to realizing I was in for something deeper than just a war novel.
As he recounts his past, you meet Helen, the woman whose presence cuts through the chaos like a soft, stubborn beam of light. Their love didn’t come off to me as dramatic but one that was necessary. Like oxygen or something you cling to when the world is burning around you. Then did I understand that war novels aren’t only about war. They’re about the people who are forced to survive it.
Remarque’s writing caught me completely off guard with how precise it is and that precision hurts in the best way.
He writes Europe in wartime as a place of fear that never sleeps. Borders become walls, strangers become threats and safety becomes something you can touch for only a moment before it slips out of your fingers. And beneath all of this, beneath the running, hiding, disguising and escaping, there’s love. I have watched too many love films and I’m bored of them so I’ll tell you the love in this book isn’t the movie kind of love. It’s more of a tired, desperate love. A love that keeps breathing even when everything else is suffocating.
By the time I moved into the later chapters, I felt like I wasn’t just reading a story, I was witnessing someone’s entire soul unravel. And even though I could sense the tragedy that was coming, it still hit hard, the way those quiet heartbreak always does.
Something shocked me the most whilst reading this and it’s that for a genre I thought I had no interest in, I ended the book with tears in my throat. Remarque made me care about a world I never planned to enter, and characters I didn’t expect to carry with me afterward.
The Night in Lisbon teaches you about exile, survival, sacrifice and the strange, stubborn miracles of love during times when hope should not exist. And for a first-time Remarque reader and of course a complete war-novel newbie, this book didn’t just open a door, it blew the whole wall down.
Trust me, I do recommend.
I'm glad the recommendation was successful! It is a hard but rewarding read.
I really appreciate the recommendation. It pushed me out of my usual reading lane in the best way.🥰