I know it's not meant to be romantic, but Stanislaus Katczinsky (Kat) and Paul Bäumer's relationship felt so great and there's a particular scene that left me breathless. There's no actual spoilers, so I won't put a spoiler tag:
We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have.
We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common–now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, are so intimate that we do not even speak.
And further, in the same scene:
In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure-and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky.
And my favorite paragraph:
Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me, like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire.
Then he says: "It's done."
I'm sorry, but I know it's meant to say how intimate bond appears between brothers in arms, especially in a place as hopeless as the front, and Paul does say later that he feels more at home in the front than where his parents are. But if "his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me, like home," isn't the most romantic thing I'd ever read, I don't know what is. The way the novel is structured makes Kat the most important figure next to Paul, and if you look at it from a queer context, it's even much more powerful.
I'm probably reaching, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the author didn't intend for there to be any subtext at all, but it's just another aspect from the novel that left me breathless, whether romantic or not.
by galitsalahat_