Tjaden
A thin, sharp-tongued soldier whose appetite and defiance expose the absurdity of military discipline.
To eat, survive, and deny abusive authority the obedience it expects.
The book
At a glance
- Locksmith
- Himmelstoss
- Constant appetite
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeTjaden was a locksmith before the war and seems perpetually hungry. His jokes give the group relief without making danger unreal.
He hates Himmelstoss for humiliating him during training and refuses to grant rank automatic respect.
How the book draws them
- Very thinHis slight build makes his enormous appetite a running joke.
- Quick-tonguedHe answers pomp with mockery.
- DefiantPunishment does not produce reverence for bad authority.
- LoyalHis irreverence belongs to the group's shared survival.
- Former locksmithA civilian trade remains part of who he was.
- Comic forceHis humor is protective rather than decorative.
Tjaden survives the immediate events of the novel, one of the few principal comrades not given a death scene.
If you like All Quiet on the Western Front
If you like Erich Maria Remarque
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Martha Gellhorn
War correspondent who covered the Spanish Civil War, D-Day, and conflicts across five more decades; Hemingway's third wife, 1940–1945.
View author
Henri Barbusse
The novelist of Le Feu — the Great War's first great trench book, written from the ranks at forty-one — and the standard both Céline and Hemingway measured war writing against.
View author