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Summary: POWERFUL NOVEL ABOUT DISILLUSIONMENT OF WAR
Review: In this most famous Remarque novel, we follow the life of Paul Baumer, a young German soldier in WWI, to his tragic death.We can see the dissonance between the romaticized version of war, which is taught to him by a high school teacher, and the actual situation of war, where in one case people are just waiting for a soldier to die to take his boots from him. The author does a very good job intertwining nature, as seen from the trenches, to the savage brutality of the combat going on. It is difficult to give good examples that don't sound corny here, but trust me that the author puts these references in a way that the reader gets a complete image of the situation. The war is seen away from its political or military environment, but rather from the perspective of daily deaths, without much meaning or crying. There is some gore, but it is done well, to the point that it will make the reader finch and understand the conditions. In this meaningless world of war, the ending is fitting. The telegraph on conditions of war in Germany reads "All Quiet on the Western Front", on a day when Paul Baumer dies. The book is a powerful statement, with no need to scream.
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Summary: A review long overdue.
Review: Remarque's masterpiece is beautiful and timeless, perhaps the first modern war novel. Long gone are the days of the heroic charge with bayonettes of pre-industrial age warfare when a former college professor in a glorious moment of bravery could turn back the enemy with a firm resolve and unflinching courage. Remarque sharply snaps the reader into the reality of the 20th century battlefield and reviles it as an ignoble stage of endless and faceless mayhem. He depicts World War I's legacy of prolonged battle which kept soldiers in the filthy trenches for months, eating rats and picking lice out of their hair, not daring to venture out of their holes for fear of being torn apart by mounted machine gun fire and explosives showers... these and more in all of their grisly, bloody, physically and mentally tortuous reality. The experience changes Paul, the protagonist, and he is unable to reconnect with his family and community back home. Absent is the celebrated feeling of being a prestigious war hero one would expect for a local boy turned veteran. The trench becomes all that is real to Paul, his comrades the only source of understanding for his battle-hardened world view. War, Remarque seems to imply, destroys the winners as well.
I was reminded often of this book when watching Samuel Fuller's "The Big Red One" more recently. That film's final line seemed most fitting to Remarque's moral: the only virtue in war is surviving.
The book's writing style is simple and unadorned. The narrative flows so smoothly because moments of most dire peril and those of carefree levity are given equally detailed treatment in disturbingly dispassionate tone. It is at first offensive to conventional morality concerning the urgency and emotional impact of life and death, but it quickly becomes a powerful medium of conveying to us Paul's personal sense of priority and meaning without requiring him to openly comment upon it.
A beautiful tale.
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Summary: A Must Read
Review: The book takes place during World War I in Germany. The army is defending against the French. Paul Baumer and his high school classmates enlist under the direction of their teacher. Little did they know the hardships they would soon face. Gas warfare, trench warfare, and dodging bullets aren't Paul's only troubles, their is always the threat of starving to death and going crazy on count of little sleep. Paul still fights for survival. It's kill or be killed and Paul doesn't want to be the latter. Will Paul come out alive?
I would recommend this book to anyone, especially people that are interested in war or different types of warfare.
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Summary: Jumping Off Place for the "Horrors Of War" Theme
Review: The horrors of war! How many times have we been exposed to it over the past century? Beginning with War and Peace I'd guess the countless books, movies, TV dramatic presentations, mini-series, and all other conceivable forms of mass-communication have been used for the "Horrors of War" drumbeat.Over and over. Over and over. Over and over.<>One only need read this one classic. All Quiet On the Western Front exposes it all--makes unnecessary countless retellings. In this shattering book we have Mr. Common Man, but a boy, his hopes, dreams, ambitions channeled by a stern School Master into the noble cause of "Fighting for the Fatherland." With broad strokes Ramarque paints the horrors of the abyss he is thrown into, and with precision, fine-line sketches he delineates the shattering of his dreams with his return home, on leave, and priceless revisitation of his classroom. The flashbacks of boyhood memories, alone, are priceless, the depictions unforgettable.<>Truly a classic for all time. A copy of All Quiet On The Western Front should be on every bookshelf in America.
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Summary: Cruelness of War
Review: The latest book that I have read is "All Quiet on the Western Front"; this is a book telling about a boy name Paul and his whole classmates going into the First World War. Erich Remarque the author of the book had also experience through the painful and cruelness of World War I. The story started out with passion, all the students wanted to go to the front line and have some action. They were called "Iron Youth", meaning the hope of the country. But the war was totally different from what they thought...
This book allowed me to see some of the truth that the government had concealed during the war, the government didn't want the families at home to know the truth about the front line so more people will join the army. Once people joined the army, there is no way back home, accept losing a part of your body. War is not a game we play; it's not like some movies that everyone fighting with passion and for love, it's just a painful death. Because of the technology advance before the war, more nasty killing weapons were invented and used in war, more unpleasant sights came to war, and I think this is why some soldiers that came back from war won't speak for a long time.
Even though that wars are over and peace comes, the soldiers that survive through war might still have their life, but their heart might been killed during the war.
People that had live through warfare like grandmother and grandfather the first generation of the family, they would always say that war is terrible and wants us to avoid it. But some modem teenagers might think that war is cool the cool guns and action. These ideals might come from the computer games we play. The author wanted people to know that war is terrible, so people in the future won't easily go on the same steps as what they did.
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Summary: A Perspective other than the US
Review: This book is incredible. It is so refreshing to read from the "loser's" point of view instead of the US's all the time. I get so tired of only hearing our side. But it was nice to have my firm belief that other nationalities are people with valid beliefs and opinions be backed up.
I could write literally pages on the brilliance of this book, but I will refrain.
It is a nice, simple read, though a very intense and meaningful one. To clarify, it goes fast, the words are 'easy' but there's so much BEHIND the words.
As Sigmund Freud states, "(War) strips us of the later accretions of civilization and lays bare the primal man in each of us. It compels us once more to be heroes who cannot believe in their own death; it stamps strangers as enemies, whose death is to be brought about or desired; it tells us to disregard the death of those we love." Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front shows the disillusionment of war-how one can easily lose all past ideals and human emotions, how one can easily forget that his enemy is human, and how one can easily fail to remember that he is still alive.
When the reader compares each character in youth to the `person' they have become, the boys of 1916 are now no more than shadows of what they were or could have been. The only time they experience any happiness is when they are with each other, enjoying the peace of camaraderie. Erich Maria Remarque fiercely details to the reader all that is lost in a war-not only lives and money; but for those who are `lucky' enough to survive-their lives have been forfeit as well. "We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces...The first bomb...burst in our hearts. We are cut off from...striving...progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war."
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