All Quiet on the Western Front

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Summary: The Insanity and Boredom of War
Review: Set during World War I, Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" follows the lives of several German soldiers during the campaign on Germany's western front. Remarque himself served as a German foot soldier in the war so speaks from experience.

The story primarily revolves around Paul Baumer. Paul and a group of his hometown friends have enlisted in the German army. They expect war to be dangerous, but also to be glamorous and exciting. However, they find out soon enough that war, especially as it is beginning to be fought during World War I, is short periods of utter insanity interspersed between long periods of unrelenting boredom. Paul and his friends nearly go to pieces the first time they experience an artillery bombardment and nearly go insane from the dullness following it.

After a little time has passed and Paul recovers from his first trial, he begins to question the rationale of complete strangers attempting to kill each other merely because they were born in different countries. He ponders the fact that, if the boys on the other side of the field had been born in his hometown, anyone of them might now be his best friend. And, if his current friends had been born in the other country, they might now be trying to kill each other.

Aside from the obvious questions that any good war book must address, Remarque paints a vivid picture of life as a soldier behind the lines. American soldiers are fond of saying that the main philosophy of our military is 'hurry up and wait'. Paul and his friends experience this just the same as American soldiers have through the years. The life of a soldier really is not much different regardless of which side he fights for.

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Summary: The Great War Novel of the 20th Century
Review: I am often disappointed when I return to a novel that I read and admired in my youth--but when I recently finished re-reading ALL QUITE ON THE WESTERN FRONT I found myself as moved and impressed I was some twenty years ago when I first encountered it. If ever there was "the great war novel of the 20th century," this is it, and I do not use that description lightly.

The novel is flawless. Told from the point of view of a young solider named Paul, ALL QUIET presents the story of German youths who enlist during World War I under the influence of a professor, who assures them that their service will make a vital difference to the cause and bring them honor and glory. Once inside the military machine, however, they endure training that consists largely of attention to petty detail and abuse of authority before being fed into the hell of the war's infamous trench warfare--in which thousands die pointlessly as they take, lose, and re-take the same few yards of land over and over again.

Remarque's style here is remarkable, for he keeps his prose simple and direct and easy to read without allowing it to become commonplace. Great horrors are presented casually, for they are the stuff of every day life; at the same time, the occasional moment of beauty--be it the blue sky on a clear day, the solace of friendship, or the satisfaction of enough to eat--stand out in high relief against the hell of battle. And as the novel progresses and the characters change, harden, and sometimes warp and break under the stress of battle, we find ourselves repeatedly confronted with both the nobility and tragedy of the ordinary man at war.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT still speaks in ringing tones, and it will not doubt continue to do so as long as war itself continues. Not just strongly recommended; it is required reading for all those who call themselves human.

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Summary: Warfare in the trenches
Review: This classic novel is the story of German Army enlisted men during World War I on the western front. In particular, it is the tragic tale of a group of soldiers including Paul Bäumer (the narrator) and several of his classmates, from the time of his entry into the Army at the age of 19 to his death on a quiet day in October 1918, just before the end of the war. The novel begins with the soldiers at the front the day after a heavy bombardment by British artillery. There are some flashbacks to their initial training.

The soldiers have developed a fatalistic, somewhat cold attitude. Deaths in the company mean more rations for the survivors. When a dying man says someone stole his watch, the attitude is that he is not going to need it anymore. One person maneuvers to get his boots when he dies. Individuals are concerned with their own survival, and acquiring whatever comforts they can get their hands on. Within the group is Katczinsky (Kat) who is a skilled forager, particularly for food.

The story is not for the squeamish. It has graphic descriptions of fighting in the trenches with sharpened spades and grenades; green recruits dirtying their pants and going mad from continual bombardment; and people blown apart by shells leaving splattered fragments. Every soldier has his dream of what he would like to be. One by one they are whittled away. It is all a matter of luck. Soldiers gradually decline into an attitude of despair. They know they can't win, but the war drags on seemingly without end. It is not a novel with a happy ending.

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Summary: All Quiet on the Western Front
Review: Few novels have ever achieved such dramatic acclaim or such enduring success as Erich Maria Remarque's brilliant and bitter novel, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.

Unrelenting realism...
With searing attention to every small moment of terror and tyranny, of filth and meanness, of savagery and tenderness, of cowardice and grandeur, Erich Maria Remarque records the experiences of a group of bewildered young German soldiers fighting and suffering through the barbaric chaos of those last desperate days of the first World War.

The power of this magnificent novel lies in its terrible authenticity, for Remarque was forced to serve as a soldier in the German army and actually lived through the hell he describes so vividly in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.

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Summary: Surely the greatest of all war books
Review: These words were spoken of Erich Maria Remarque's ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, the 1928 novel of World War One. ALL QUIET is the story of Germany's "Iron Youth," following Paul Bäumer and his ragtag comrades in the Second Company through life and death, combat and escapades.

With beautiful eloquence, Remarque conveys the horrors of war. As one follows the men of the Second Company, one sees the effects of a war on the generation that fights it. The reader realizes how inconsequential one life becomes when thousands of them are lost in efforts to capture a few yards of land. Phenomenally descriptive, ALL QUIET takes the reader from the calm, lackadaisical life of soldiers away from combat and thrusts him to the front to experience the atrocities of war firsthand, where only instincts and camaraderie are valued.

In his introduction, Remarque states his goal as telling "of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." In this, one finds the true value of this book. Not a romantic, glorious war story, its purpose is to show how war changes those who fight it-forever. In this story, nationalities are inconsequential, as the characters' German nationality only shapes the background of a story. The combatants could be British, French, or American, as the message conveyed by this story is universal: No matter what flag a man fights under, war affects him in exactly the same way.

The greatest, most important moments in this story are when a character can separate himself from the situation that he is facing, and look beyond his own life, applying what he is experiencing to his friends, to his generation, or to humanity. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is a compelling, moving war story, but, more importantly than that, is a testament to the effects and horrors of wars on the men that fight them.

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Summary: War novel? No, better than that
Review: This book is more than a war novel; it is a novel of literature's highest order--a novel of the human experience. Paul Baumer is an unforgettable character; victim of propoganda, soldier at a war he can't understand, and sensitive human being, he is one of the best drawn characters I have ever encountered. This is a must read.

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Summary: Reality of the War
Review: I felt that All Quiet Along the Western Front is an accurate description of life among soldiers in the trenches of World War I. I really enjoyed this book because when I read it, I felt like I was right there next to Paul, Kat, and Muller in the holes left by exploding shells. Erich Maria Remarque also does a wonderful job of describing characters, mainly Paul, through either thoughts to themselves, actions, or dialogue. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a short fiction book that's packed with adventure.

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Summary: The Truths of War
Review: All Quiet On the Western Front is a great story about young German soldiers fighting in WWI. The book follows Paul Baumer and his friends, Muller, Kemmerich, Franz, and Tjaden through their struggle to survive the horrible war. The men enlist, full of pride and enthusiasm, but they quickly realize the senseless stupidity of the fighting. As they watch their comrades die horrifying deaths, the soldiers know they will never be the same. This is apparent to Baumer when he returns to his home during a two week leave. His mother is curious about the war, but he knows he can't tell her how he killed men his own age with his bare hands. Baumer is isolated in the world outside of the war. He has no way of expressing his thoughts and feelings to those who didn't experience the fighting firsthand. The battleground, the place he hates, has become the only place he can live. As the fighting continues and more of his friends are killed, it becomes obvious to Baumer that whether he lives or dies, it is all the same.
Remarque has written a powerful story which highlights the dark side of war. He points out that men of the same generation are forced to kill each other, only because they wear different uniforms. This is not a feel-happy book, but it is highly insightful and thought provoking. I would highly recommend it. A great feature of the book is that there is little importance placed on Germany fighting England and France. The actual soldiers see their fight as being against the idea of war itself. The story is a testament to the power of the human spirit and what it can endure. There is a fair amount of war violence, but if you can get past that, you should definitely read this book.

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Summary: A book every soldier must read
Review: War is meanigless, except for the persons who have the political and economical power.
Remarque reflects the thoughts and feelings of a soldier during the war in which no one wins really.

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Summary: The ugly reality of war
Review: This remarkable novel conveys the true face of war in ways that no memoirs, no academic monographs, and no movies can. There is no romance in war, only mud, blood, starvation, and death. World War I was the war to end all wars, and it is quite appropriate that the Great War is the setting of this novel. Any idealism was quickly torn asunder by month after month, year after year of trench warfare. This is the story of one German soldier, a boy who was talked into joining the German army along with all of his classmates. At the front lines, Paul Baumer becomes a soldier. He and his buddies become primitive and animalistic because it is the only way to survive in that environment; thoughts of home or "the war" deprive them of the instincts they must rely on to avoid being killed. Baumer is philosophical enough to realize that he has essentially died inside, that every member of his generation has died spiritually if not physically and been robbed of a future. His trips home are perhaps the most painful days he spends; his family is living in poverty and his mother is dying of cancer. The emotions and feelings he takes back with him to the front are dangerous because they distract him. As for the fighting, the men seem to have no reason for being there. They speak of the fact that the enemy is just like them, young and scared. The French are fighting and believe that their cause is right, just as the Germans are. When he is guarding Russian prisoners, he sees them as men just like himself. There is a noticeable absence of commanders in the novel. What middling superior officers there are come across as cruel, cowardly pretenders. Himmelstoss, the "drill sergeant" type who trained these men to fight is a sickeningly cruel man who deserves the revenge the men are able to exact upon him when he finds himself sent to the front. When the Kaiser comes to review the troops, the men cannot understand why he let the war happen--after all, he supposedly did not want war, the German people did not want war, the French did not want war, yet there is war.

Remarque pulls no punches in describing man's inhumanity to man. The mud, the lice, the rats, the blood and gore, the gas attacks--that is the war as described here. At one point early on, Baumer dives for cover in a graveyard of recently buried comrades; as the bombardment continues unabated, he scrambles under cover and then discovers the cover is a shattered coffin. At the front, the dead are killed over and over again. At one point, he passes a scene in which bodies have been blown apart, with parts hanging from trees all around. Forced to take shelter in a shell hole, Baumer kills a foreign soldier who falls into the hole with him; the man does not die quickly, and the experience is a revealing, emotional one as Baumer tries to help the man stay alive and then agonizes over the family this man will not come home to. For me, though, the most poignant scene in the novel comes early on when, in the wake of a heavy bombardment, the surviving men are all but driven mad by the sound of wounded horses. The cry of the horses, some of whom run and stumble around dragging their intestines on the ground, are more than the men can bear. Men fight wars; it is cruel to bring horses into the conflict, the men declare. It is a long, painful scene finally ended by the shots that end the horses' suffering.

These pages contain the reality of war; as such, some will be bothered if not sickened by some sections of the story. As a conservative "hawk" who has never experienced anything along these lines, it is very good and useful for me to read this book. Remarque's purpose in writing this book was to tell future generations how horrible war is and how it must be avoided at all costs if possible. The men who survive such an ordeal are dead inside; in Remarque's case, an entire generation of Europeans (and Americans) died and suffered; those that returned were not the same men who went away to fight. If everyone read this novel, war would not be a constant affliction on humanity.