All Quiet on the Western Front

Read this for my ‘European History since 1914' class in college, and very much enjoyed it. It's a brisk read, with a great ending.

Brilliant. An anti war novel for the ages.

I know that this book has a lot of historical value, but having read quite a few impressive war books, I found that this didn't add much to the narrative.

My German book around the world

Read this in high school. Very well written book.

menetközben sikerült rájönnöm, hogy valószínűleg attól olyan nehézkes a nyelvezete, hogy németből fordították angolra.
de azért fantasztikus a könyv így is, ez kétségtelen.

Haunting, mesmerizing, engrossing, terrifying.

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.

tan poético como desgarrador, todo callao al frente oeste es una mezcla cruel de los sentimientos de duelo de alguien que tuvo q exiliarse de su país y plasmar las atrocidades que compatriotas tuvieron que afrontar, pero con una manera tan hermosa de tratar esos temas. tiene varias quotes interesantes de analizar y además que son poesía pura. no es por glorificar la guerra, pero este autor supo como drenar sus tormentos en un libro genial que todos deberían leer

I only wish it was longer. The poetry in the descriptions sometimes made it feel even more personal strangely. The way war is presented here shows the human side beyond the guns and the politics. A great read.

Such an important book. I think the biggest takeaway I got from this, aside from how war is never supposed to be glamorized, is empathy. Remarque has such a tremendous respect for everyone involved in the novel, specifically the working class. He's quick to point out that the most affected one of all are the downtrodden, the ones only used as pawns for other people to abuse. It also helps that the way he writes women feels so honest—no misogyny, just writing them as people. One of my favorite parts is during Paul's time away from the front, when he sees the Russian prison. Remarque holds such a grip on keeping the humanity, even at times when you feel as though there isn't any.The next part is just overindulgent, and probably rude on my part, so I'll just put it in spoilers: Kat and Paul have the most intense romantic (non-romantic) chemistry I've ever seen. With my modern sensibilities, it's easy to think that it's subtly queer, but it's genuinely such a great depiction of brotherhood and genuine love and respect they have for each other.

I found the story very moving and real in a way I wasn't quite ready for. I wasn't sure if it was historical fiction or written by someone who had been there and the more I read, the more certain I was that Remarque had experienced this himself (he had). The first half seemed to bounch back and forth between the front line and the break the soldiers got between their turns at the front. The stark differences between the two were very well done and showed how brutal conditions were for those fighting. I thought Remarque wrote beautifully about the feelings Paul and his comrades had while fighting and I found it all very moving.

I am hontesly finding this hard to word myself. Maybe motsly as this book is not super engraving so I bearly rember wht I even read anymore. It was a god and pleasent quick read. But also it was super easy to forget for me.

3,5-4 /5

Tämä oli erittäin ajatuksia herättävä kirja ja ymmärrän, miksi se on klassikkoaseman saanut. Kirjassa pääsee näkemään ensimmäisen maailmansodan aiheuttamat tunteet nuorissa miehissä, jotka eivät oikein ole vielä kunnolla alkaneet elää omaa elämää, kunnes joutuvat keskelle sodan melskettä.

Toisinaan ajatukseni tuntuivat harhailevan tätä lukiessa ja tarina ei aina tuntunut hirveän yhteneväiseltä. Toisaalta tämä on ehkä niitä kirjoja, jotka on joskus hyvä lukea uudelleen.

A chilling insight into the life on the front lines during the Great War and how one young man tries to find his place in a new and bloody world. A haunting, but worthwhile read.

4.5 stars

This book will probably stay with me for a very long time.
Hard to read. Very emotional, violent, and sad.

As gruesome and depressing as it needs to be, it's the kind of book that makes you want to hand in your membership card of the human race. At least of the male variety.
Loathed by the loathsome for it's humanist, apolitical and no nonsense description of war. Should be compulsory reading at military academies.

La fel ca si filmele, printre cele mai sfasietoare momente vazute si citite vreodata...

A very tragic but real ww2 story. I'll admit it took me 3 months to get around to finishing it though.

Now as much as then, a fiercely anti war book. I bet modern war mongers would find a way to read it and pretend it does not apply to them, that modern wars are better, simpler, cleaner, but every human with a shred of empathy can tell that it's a lie. Today's armies still send their young to a futile, cruel, meaningless death, no matter how much we tell ourselves otherwise. Herein lies both the brilliance and the deep sadness of Remarque's book, that it has not aged in a hundred years, and probably never will.

dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

“It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.”

Before reading this book, I think I somehow fell into the trap that a lot of these young boys did a hundred years ago. To me, the trenches became a symbol of resilience. That someone could have such dedication towards their country they'd be willing to fight and die in such disgusting and horrifying conditions was commendable to me. But quickly, as I read this book it became clear- the soldiers aren't fighting in a war with another country's soldiers. They were lied to. The only real enemy is death. Like the poisonous gas that sank into the trenches and the shell-holes, it was ever-present and completely inescapable.

Remarque makes it clear- the front is a hellscape beyond all that is imaginable. These men, or more accurately, boys, aren't fighting with some strong nationalist fervor, but rather clawing out from the impending grips of death that surround them. In essence, they're already gone. Paul notes certain skills & tactics the soldiers can pick up to improve their odds, but in the end it's still all a horrific game of chance.

One thing that struck me was the way the soldiers talk about their friends dying so nonchalantly. Right in the beginning, Paul notes how a loss of men in one of the battles let them have extra rations, and that he is happy for that. Nobody can afford to care about dying anymore, it becomes a question of when, rather than if. Paul notes the death of Müller so matter-of-factly, almost as if he had no emotional connections to him at all. The first order of business is deciding the order that the boots he inherited from Kemmerich will be passed along to, not to crying for him or praying. The sentences surrounding his death are short and curt, as if there is nothing more to be said of the matter. The soldiers have all been so completely desensitized to death, they cannot afford to feel anything over the death of their friend because if they did, they would be in a perpetual state of grief, which I suppose they are regardless. When Paul is in that shell-hole and stabs the other soldier to death, he feels horrible for it and promises to write and send money to his family. He deflects some of the blame to the war in general but acknowledges his part in this his demise. Later, however he gets convinced by his friends to forget about everything because there's no way they can think about every single person they kill, it would weigh them all down too much.

I thought it was interesting how Paul was hesitant to find out the man's name because he said if he didn't, he would easily be able to forget about what happened but if he got his name, it would be a label that could torment him for the rest of his life. Becoming desensitized was the only way to deal with the suffering they inflicted and that surrounded them.

The dichotomy of the frontlines and the people back at home who talk about the war is also interesting. Some people in the pub (I think it was?) tell Paul how Germany should do this and that, completely ignorant to the reality of the trenches. Both sides believed the war would end quickly, which led to a draining war that killed millions. At the pub, you get the sense that Paul is just thinking, “I've been through literal hell for months fighting this senseless war. They have the audacity to tell me I know nothing about the war since I'm just the soldier in the trenches? They're the ones who are disillusioned.”

A big part of the book is this difference between the people at home and in the trenches. Paul and his schoolmates who joined the war have a strong sense of betrayal from figures such as Kantorek- their old schoolmaster.

dulce et decorum est pro patria mori This sentiment was a prevalent one among many at the start of the war. When Kantorek becomes part of the military and Paul's schoolfriend is bossing him around and yelling at him it is almost cathartic because he is the one who sold them a lie and glorified the disgusting reality of war.

They call people from this generation the ‘lost generation'. It is so incredibly sad, reading someone completely lose their will to live, and millions of lives stolen by the war- and even if their lives weren't stolen then their futures were. If you've ever romanticized war, had any shallow visions of heroism when you see those old war photos and think ‘well, at least they had a reason to fight, something that united them, at least they weren't as individualistic and polarized as we are today,' all of that gets completely blown out of you like the incessant bombardments that pierce the pages of this book.

Although not the primary message, I also think this shows how in these women can be easily objectified in these scenarios. Paul had thoughts about “winning over” the girl on that poster they find, though he admits it was silly. It goes to show the lack of will to live these men had, and how they clung on to any reason to keep fighting for their lives, any other motivation beyond survival.

Even though it exposes the horrors of war well, All Quiet does romanticize the relationships that Paul has with his fellow soldiers- like when he and Kat are eating the goose and he's talking about how much he loves Kat, or when he's clawing back to the trench and talking about how the bond between him and the soldiers - “I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder way.” (157) It reminds me of the Greek ‘philla' type of love, like a brotherly kind of love. Paul notes that these kinds of relationships could never occur during peacetime. I think it's interesting, how shared traumatic experiences give us a different kind of bond beyond friendship.

When Paul goes back home, he can't even read the books he once loved and feels like a “foreigner” in his own home. All his passion and hope has been knocked out of him. Everything that he once lived for has no appeal anymore. He tries to survive the war solely as a primal instinct and for the sake of his comrades, for the tiny moments of joy like eating that goose with Kat. Once Kat dies however, I think Paul comes to the realization that everyone he has loved is gone, there is nothing he has left to live for. The last pages of the book are the most harrowing.

“I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear.” (214)

“[All Quiet on the Western Front] will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”

“I soon found out this much: terror can be endured so long as a man simply ducks, but it kills if a man thinks about it.”

There's approximately eleventy bajillion other reviews that will probably summarize this book better than I ever could, so I won't bother with a summary.

What I will say is, in a sea of WWI/WWII fiction, this one rightfully stands head and shoulders above the rest. It captures the feeling of boys, fresh out of school, enlisting to do their country proud, being sent to the front lines, and learning what World War I was all about. Reading about their forced transition from boy to man in a very short time was heartbreaking, and there's scene after scene that sticks in my head even after being done with the book.

This book isn't for everyone. It's graphic, pulls no punches, and is heavy on detail. It's also more stream of consciousness and one man's observations than plot-driven, so if that isn't your cup of tea, you might not get a lot out of this book.

It broke my heart and made me cry. That's a hallmark of a good book to me.

The writing in “All Quiet on the Western Front” is both beautiful and searing. This is certainly one of the best war, or antiwar, books I've ever read.

Longer review to come.

Outstanding novel. Extremely heavy. The last page took a piece of me with it.

I found most of this book a bit too detached to be engaging personally (although it is probably intentional) but the last two chapters are pretty good. I especially like the last page. War sucks.

My brother gave me this book in high school and it has travelled with me for some time. I've read it over the month of September and found it to be quite exceptional.

Sadly this lined up with the Netflix series so I've got some shit for that. I didn't even know they were making it into a show!

A much different view of war than I've read before. This lining up with my political views and disdain of war and all who would order it. The deaths at the end were all so rapid and written so casually it captures the numbness that the war brought to all the characters.

Este libro es una joya, su contenido es otro nivel, seguramente quedará en mi recuerdo por buen tiempo, si no es que para toda mi vida. 

Encontré (en el libro) preguntas, reflexiones y pensamientos similares (que me hago) al “ver” sucesos similares, cosas que no se entienden cómo pueden suceder, pero aun así se han repetido tantas veces en la historia...