All Quiet on the Western Front

What to write about this novel that every man and his dog has already read and reviewed...

I though this was a great piece of work, including the translation, which demonstrates clearly the futility, the frustration and the pointlessness of war. World War I - the war that was to end all wars - little came of that. It was however one of the more brutal wars with less mechanisation and more close combat.

The narrator, Paul Bäumer, is a twenty year old, and is in the trenches with his school mates, green to war. We share the horrors and the laughs as this group of young men dwindles over the period of the war.

I will share a quote, one of many I found poignant. It occurs near the end of the novel, as the war is almost over, and the end is expected. Bäumer is reflecting on what the return to ‘normal life' will be for him.

No one will understand us - because in front of us is a generation of men who did, it is true, share the years out here with us, but who already had a bed and a job and who are going back to their old positions, where they will forget all about the war - and behind us, a new generation is growing up, one like we used to be, and that generation will be strangers to us and will push us aside. We are superfluous even to ourselves, we shall grow older, a few will adapt, others will make adjustments, and many of us will not know what to do - the years will trickle away, and eventually we shall perish.