All Quiet on the Western Front

A nice gruesome classic; perfect for reading on the beach during summer. I particularly enjoyed the description of all the corpse rats and how fat and healthy they were out in the all-you-can-eat battlefield buffet. I was glad that Remarque was able to weave in a little bit of dark humor here and there with such a gloomy backdrop. It was always fun to read thru the parts where Paul Baumer and the other soldiers from his squad would beat the shit out of corporal Himmelstoss for being such a prick to his recruits, or getting payback on that piece of shit Kantorek after he waltzed so many young men into the war and ultimately to their doom. Definitely one of the greatest war novels ever written. And that's probably why Hitler banned it show more when he showed up on the scene to stink the joint up. show less

I finally got around to reading this classic about a German soldier's experience during WWI. It was published in 1929 and of course created a storm of discussion and controversy. Remarque doesn't soften or glamorize the war, instead he gives a realistic portrayal of the horrors of death, wounds, and lack of food. He also explores the friendships and connections made on the front and the challenges of returning home during periods of leave.

I was so mad, reading this, that just a few decades later WWII happened. I'll never understand how people who lived through WWI could have allowed WWII to happen. Academically, I've heard and understand the standard answer, but I still don't really comprehend it.

I thought this was really well done and show more obviously an important work, but reading about war will just never be a "favorite" for me. show less

I never want to rate books I read for school because I tend to view them in a different way and I interact with them in a certain fashion. But, I loved this book enough to ignore my rule on rating books for school because this book had an effect on me. All Quiet on the Western Front did not paint war as this heroic moment full of glory and patriotism, but as a moment of death and destruction that pits man against man, for what? A couple of yards on a map? There are no real winners of war except those that do not have to fight, and those that do will never forget what they saw. World War I was a war that was destined to be and a war that all the powers of Europe wanted no matter the cost. World War I defined a generation and the wounds show more it left across the globe have never really healed and are easy to reopen. show less

I decided to read this to get some perspective in this tub-thumping rolling centenary of WW1. Both my grandfathers fought in that war. I never knew either of them, but my parents told me that neither would speak of what they had experienced. I studied the war at secondary school. It made no sense to me. I haven't read Pat Barker's books yet, but I have read Birdsong, which I found ridiculously romanticised and overblown. All Quiet On The Western Front seems to me to make the most sense as is possible of that senseless war. I understand a bit better what Jim and Herbert, my grandfathers, went through and how that experience would make them unable to talk about it with people who hadn't lived through it. Remarque's book is important for show more that reason. show less

“Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades---words, words, but they hold the horror of the world. Our faces are encrusted, our thoughts are devastated, we are weary to death; when the attack comes we shall have to strike many men with our fists to waken them and make them come with us---our eyes are burnt, our hands are torn, our knees bleed, our elbows are raw.” (Page 116)

Some books write their own reviews. This is one of them. This classic WWI story, told from the point of view of a young German soldier named Paul, tells the heartbreaking story of one man’s experience on the front. Raw, emotional, and heartbreaking, it’s quite possibly the best war story I’ve ever read. Quotable show more passages can be found on every page as the young soldier relates the grisliness of combat. Remarque chose to use static, short sentences to tell the story that is almost poetic in this brief novel. A somewhat autobiographical novel, he concentrated on the horrors of war and the soldier’s alienation from civilians in the book. When he gets a chance to go home on leave he writes:

“What is leave?----A pause that only makes everything after it so much worse. Already the sense of parting begins to intrude itself. My mother watches me silently;----I know she counts the days;----every morning she is sad. It is one day less. She has put away my pack, she does not want to be reminded by it.” (Page 155)

The stress and revulsion of being left in No Man’s Land with the first enemy that he has killed in hand-to-hand combat is almost too much for him:

“By noon I am groping on the outer limits of reason. Hunger devours me, I could almost weep for something to eat, I cannot struggle against it. Again and again I fetch water for the dying man and drink some myself.
This is the first time I have killed with my hands, whom I can see close at hand, whose death is my doing…But every gasp lays my heart bare. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts.” (Page 189)

It is this agonizing thought process as he is at the front that makes this book so heartbreaking. It could only have been written by someone who had experienced war firsthand.

I continually found myself comparing this book with Vera Brittain’s autobiography, Testament of Youth, which I read earlier this year, and which searingly told the story of WWI from a Brit’s point of view. The soldiers in both books experienced the same horror. And both books showed the folly of war and why we should avoid it at all costs. Both are books about peace by demonstrating what makes war so horrifying. Very highly recommended. show less

Throughout All Quiet on the Western Front there is the theme of a lost innocence. Soldiers as young as 18 or 19 reflect on a childhood lost. The main character of Paul Baumer is constantly thinking about how, if he were to survive the war, he could never relate to the peacetime world around him. He scoffs at the word "peace." I saw All Quiet as a commentary on survival in its purest form. Doing anything and everything you can to live another day. When one soldier is obviously on death's door another wants his boots and starts planning a strategy to get them...even before the dying man has drawn his last breath. This is not callousness personified. This is survival. He knows the boots are of no use to the dying soldier. They would be to show more him, if only he could get them before someone else does. Ironically, the boots are later passed along to Paul eventually.
Another aspect of Remarque's work that bears mentioning is the detail he pays to describing death. While the images are unforgiving, violent and grotesque, it is war in its truest state and at its worst. Some of the images that stuck with me: a butterfly flitting around a field of dead men and finally settling to rest on the teeth of a corpse; a screaming horse that can't be put out of his misery because he will reveal the hiding place of the soldiers. show less

“While they taught that duty to one’s country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger.”

“Give ‘em all the same grub and all the same pay
And the war would be over and done in a day.”

“That is our sole ambition: to knock the conceit out of a postman.” I’m glad they meant Himmeltoss and not me!

“The war has ruined us for everything.”

“We have lost all feeling for one another.”

Honestly, I could copy down so many more quotes from this book. The quote on the cover of this edition may very well be true: "The Greatest War Novel of All Time". I'd be hard pressed to name its superior. I really felt everything this young man went through, how he felt, and how he pressed on. Just a stark reality show more of war, and what it takes from the humans pressed into it. Harsh and bleak.

And those last three sentences… damn. show less