My thoughts

So, I know there is foreshadowing in the book, but like Dana, I figured it was foreshadowing war and not what happened when he wasn't at war. It turns out I was wrong. It could perhaps be speculated that the war scenes foreshadowed what happened when he wasn't at war, which isn't at all what I expected from this novel. There are a few things that bother me about this book though. First of all is the lack of depth in the characters. I suppose this has an explanation though. The only people in this novel that are described are the people that the narrator interacts with while not at war. This could possibly show the narrator's detachment from the war, both physically in some parts and mentally throughout the entire novel. The part that this bothered me the most was when Aymo was killed. He was one of the few characters in the novel that actually had a name, and yet his death, despite the physical detail of it was not very emotional. I felt little to nothing for his death and I have a strong feeling that the narrator did also. This shows the strong sense of detachment the narrator has.
Just to keep on going with the things that bother me and the sense of detachment, the narrator's actual name is only stated once in the novel, on page 84! Everyone simply refers to him as Lieutenant. This shows his strong detachment from the war and all horrible things.
The final irksome scene for me is his child. When he first sees his child, the one he and Catherine had been looking forward to so much. He compares the child to a skinned rabbit! This part bothered me a lot because of the extreme lack of detachment. After he realized his child had died he felt a little bad for it, like he had Aymo, but there was no real attachment or sense of loss. Come to think of it, it's the same way he treated Catherine's death. Which means that the narrator likes to run away from problems and death and horrible things. I know this was really scattered, sorry.