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Summary: I read this book in german, and watched the movie in english
Review: I find this book excellent! The descriptions and the way he tells the story is so remarkable. The movie is also greatly done, almost exactly done by the book, except that in the book REmarque uses butterflies as symbols, while the movie uses birds. This is the newer movie I am talking about, the older uses butterflies also. Read this book, it is great!
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Summary: Life is far too short to dwell on such somber tones...
Review: Sit there and repeat these words to yourself: blood, guts, death, gore, destruction, decapitation, bile, putrification, dying and lice. Do this for about seven hours. If you've followed this advice, you've just been spared from going to the library or purchasing the disc. This story must be the predecessor of reality television.Although there is some incredible promise of being called a "hero" when one enlists to fight in a war, the naïve soldier soon finds out that the glory only lives in the minds of those who do not serve. To fight a war with bombs, mustard gas and all means of human destruction takes on a completely different meaning when experienced first hand. This an excerpt of what was known then as "The Great War" before we realized that a second world war would follow almost two decades later. The experience is told from the perspective of a German soldier, as though recorded in a diary. He tells of what it really means to be known as a "hero" or "veteran" and emphasizes that by the time all is said and done, it amounts to nothing more than a senseless destruction of human lives for a forgotten cause. Intended to be so, this is certainly a monotonous story, as the reader is repeatedly hounded with the author's base message. The person who narrates the audio compact disc version of the story has chosen an oddly theatrical presentation and after some hours, the slow monotone becomes annoying. I would recommend more uplifting entertainment. Sometimes dwelling in such overwhelming reality is far too much to endure. And as exemplified by the story, life is far too short to dwell on such somber tones.
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Summary: Greatest War Book Written; Testimony to the Human Character
Review: I've made it a point to never read a book about the gory and intimate details of war unless it was written by someone who experienced it. I had heard of this book because of its fame, but didn't know much about it. I learned that Remarque had been in the war, and eagerly picked it up. There is nothing like an experienced author to describe an event and the feelings that ensue. This book is by far the greatest, most intricate, most heartwrenching and genuinely touching war book I have ever read, and perhaps that is because it is Remarque's experience in a gorgeous prose. Turned into the life of one Paul Bremer, a 20 year old volunteer for Germany, we go from his second year in the war and end at his last year. He describes to us his feelings, his thoughts, his sufferings. He describes the lifestyle of the soldiers, the experience of the battlefield, and the bloody topography. Always entertaining, and always powerfully ept in its description, it unflinchingly creates a world of darkness and very little light and hope. This is by far the greatest war and combat book ever. I had heard people say it before, and I join with them. But not just because of it's descriptions and realism, but it's analyzation of human character, of the hypocrisy of man, and how the soul can be calloused and discarded, only to be rediscovered painfully or joyfully.
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Summary: Fighting in the Trenches
Review: If you had given me a scale to rate the book "All Quiet on the Western Front," by Erich Maria Remarque, a scale of 1-5 (1=low, 5=high), I would have given it a 4. Remarque actually fought in the war, so he was able to give a very good, interesting insight of what things were like. He wasn't writing an autobiography, though, so it showed a passion that he had to write this story, a passion that can be contagious.
Remarque didn't show much excitement, as some parts dragged somewhat, but I didn't look at those moments as bad, boring writing. I think Remarque was trying to give us the effect of what is was like in the trenches, in the chow line, and sitting in a hospital. He may have been trying to show us that war isn't always exciting. Anyway, what parts that did drag didn't last long, no more than two pages.
But what was great in my eyes were the parts not like that. He was very poetic, in the thoughts that Paul thought, describing everything in a way so that one sentence would describe two different thoughts, and the nextsentence would finish the second thought and start a third. The parts that I consider poetic jump out at me. I think about the writing so hard I have to put the book down.
Remarque gives pacing in his writing like the ocean. Every few waves, you get a big one that is huge compared to the other smaller waves. It made me wonder how long I would have to wait to get another captivating moment.
In "All Quiet on the Western Front," there are many things that keep me going through the book. The poetic words that jump out, the "big waves," and the thoughts shown through Paul that make you think the same thing he's thinking.
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Summary: The Sorrow and the Pity
Review: Using plain language in only a few hundred pages Remarque strips the "great" war of it's false glory and reveals its terrifying, relentless horror. And how people adapted to it. The mother-son relationship is particularly affecting (although his father seems to be made of cardboard - but this could be a reflection of the gulf between the old and young men). A damning indictment of the propaganda of war. By the end, this young man is another victim of war - destroyed in his soul, heart, mind and finally his body. A very emotional story. I lived every moment and was consumed with grief. Why do we let the same thing happen over and over again???????
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Summary: War. What is it good for?
Review: On the first page of this novel is a message:
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even thought they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. A group of boys (Lead by Paul Baumer) has enlisted into the German army during the First World War. Believing that they will find glory and having the honor of serving the Fatherland (Germany in this case), the boys go to war. What they find however is no adventure, but rather a hell. Paul and his schoolboy friends are broken up on their first bombardment, as they find out that war will be far different from what their schoolmaster told them. But Paul is able to survive and get the strength to carry on from his friend "Kat" Katczinsky. Paul seems to look up at Kat as a role model. He is tough, hard-nosed and has been around for a long time. He and Paul are best of friends. We feel Paul's sorrow as he loses friend after friend in the trenches, with Kat being the last to go. One of the book's best parts is when Paul is caught in a shell crater with a French Soldier. When the French soldier jumps in, Paul immediately stabs him. But, as the soldier lays dying, Paul is overcome with sorrow. He comforts the soldier and gives him water. He also begs for forgiveness for his killing of another brother. Sure, Paul was in a uniform different from the other man. But this doesn't mean he is different from the soldier he killed. Another part deals when Paul goes on leave to home. He has become removed from the rest of civilization. He feels uncomfortable at his home with his mother and sister because they are so interested in the war. When Paul goes for a beer along with his father and friends, he is shown around as a tough warrior. He is also told to press on. Paul remarks at the end of this chapter "I should have never gone on leave". He realizes that the only place he feels comfortable at is the front, along with Kat and his other buddies. A good point is brought up by a group of soldiers in the text. When one of them asks as to how wars begin, another replies "It occurs when one country offends another". One of the other soldiers then mentions "I don't feel offended". This shows that although they are supposed to be fighting for the Fatherland, they don't know why. This shows that although politicians generally start wars, it's common men like you and me who have to do the fighting. Often, we have no complaints with the other side. This could be linked with the recent World Trade Center bombing and with the events in Afghanistan. This is open for debate, but an excellent point has been made. Paul is the protagonist. Through his experiences he learns to hate war, to hate the force of evil that makes men kill each other for no reason except that they're wearing different uniforms. Yet, the front destroys him mentally. He can no longer work as well around other people as he could have before the war. His new home is the front. Thus, we feel sympathy for him at how his life has been ruined by a meaningless war. The book's antagonist, some might say, is war. Indeed, this would be an excellent choice. But how are wars caused? They don't just come out of nowhere. Some (Manufacturing, Generals, leaders) also benefit from wars. Thus, I think society is the antagonist in this story. The politicians and leaders create wars, but yet don't fight them by themselves, instead sending young boys to die and fight against an enemy they have no grudge with. On an ending note, one of the characters in the book suggests a good idea of how war should be fought. It should be a kind of sporting event, like a bullfight. In the arena, the ministers and generals of the two countries, dressed in bathing drawers and holding clubs, would have it out among themselves. The winning country is the one that survives. If only our leaders were to listen.
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Summary: "Vivid and Revealing"
Review: No single author but Erich Maria Remarque portrays the pangs of war and the essence of humanity to such an elevating level of vividness. Remarque's gripping narrative never fails to reveal humanities struggle for survival and search for the meaning of life at the forefront of terror and death. Many people say not to talk about war until you have been there for yourself; but if anyone puts you closer to the battlefield it is undoubtably Erich Maria Remarque.
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Summary: All Quiet on the Western Front
Review: The book All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque, was an amazing novel about a man involved in WWII. This book keeps your interest throughout by giving you insight into the mindset of the generation when eighteen-year-old boys signed up for war. It shares the world few know and many wonder which is why it is such a captivating novel. How the author uses the characters interactions to portray the emotional sides is a wonderful way to draw the reader in. I found the book a quick and easy read and I do not truly enjoy reading. When the antagonist returns home for the first time since the war he soon realizes he will no longer be able to live among his family and friends. The Author shows the reader how he sorts this out and that alone would not allow me set the book down. The ending, I guarantee is worth reading the entire novel in order to find out the final solution to the main character, Paul Baumer's, dilemma. That is why I would recommend this novel to anyone to read because it was such a wonderful story into the mind of a soldier during WWII.
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Summary: When Will They Ever Learn?
Review: "War is hell", said Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman. Well said. But with his towering semi-autobiographical masterpiece,"All Quiet on the Western Front", Erich Maria Remarque SHOWS us the all too harrowing truth of that famous quote. Set in the waning days of World War I, Remarque's hero, 20 year-old German soldier Paul Baumer, through his first-person narration, takes us on a guided tour of that hell that was the trench warfare in France. The novel is a brutally honest, unflinching depiction of the horrors, and degradations of that most deadly of all human enterprises, and the physical,spiritual and psychological toll it takes on its participants. Unlike other exemplars of the genre such as "War and Peace" and "The Red Badge of Courage", Remarque's novel pulls no punches in deference to his readers possibly refined sensibiities, but is determined to show the animal brutality,the torn and horrible human disfigurement, the dread, anxiety and soul-deadening ennui that is the result of modern mechanized warfare. If the reader harbors any illusions about the glamor, glory and romance of combat, Remarque brutally strips these away with his grimly poetic prose to reveal the beast in all its unspeakable brutality and wretchedness. As young Baumer and his comrades-in-arms, are rapidly ground up in the abatoir that was the Western front, they are increasingly reduced to insensate beasts whose only small joys come from having a modicum of decent food to eat, and the empty satisfaction of their sexual drivesin brothels, or by accomodating females in occupied territory. Before most of them meet their gruesome physical deaths on the barren,muddy barbed-wired landscapes of the battlefield, they have already died spiritually and emotionally to all of life's hopes and possibilties. Thus, when Baumer goes home on two weeks leave, he is overwhelmed by feelings of alienation from his family, neighborhood, and neighbors. All that was once familiar, enjoyable, warm and comforting has been irretrievably lost. The idea of returning to the "normal" pursuits of everyday peacetime existence seem absurd after the horrors he has experienced. Remarque strongly expresses his anti-war sentiments through the sensitive and circuspect Baumer, who sees the obscene ridiculousness of those adult "authority" figures who, in their patriotic fervor spurred the youths to don uniforms and led them, like unwitting sheepto the slaughterhouse. He also realizes that he has much more in common with his young enemies, who he must kill, or be killed by, than those authorities and commanding officers. Young Baumer, in conversations with his fellow soldiers comes to skeptically question notions of patriotism, nationalism and the very rationale for war itself: dangerous thoughts which no nation bent on military adventure can tolerate. Upon finishing this unforgettable tour de force, published in 1928, and read by millions around the world, this reader found it difficult to believe that, with this powerful condemnation of war, the human race could allow itself to ever again take up arms. Alas, barely ten years later the world was engulfed in even greaterhorrors. As Pete Seeger sang, "When will they ever learn?"
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Summary: All Quiet on the Western Front -- In war we are all the same
Review: All Quiet on the Western Front
Written by Enrich Maria Remarque
Reviewed by Yael Bozzay Originally banned and burned in Germany by the Nazi's in 1933 (five years after it was first published) because of it's antinationalist, pacifist, and dissident sentiment, All Quiet on the Western Front by Enrich Maria Remarque reached acclaim across the world as an intimate portrayal of life during the war from the "enemy's" point of view. It was translated to over twenty-five languages, two movies have been made, and it has sold many million copies. As a result of its popularity across the world and its subsequent distaste to the Nazi's, Enrich Maria Remarque was exiled in 1938, and his citizenship in Germany was revoked. All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel written from the point of view of a German soldier, Paul Baumer, fighting on the western front during 1917 & 1918 (the last two years of WWI). Through Paul's experiences we can see the similarities between all men in war. From detailed descriptions given by Paul of the food soldiers ate, the boots and clothes they wore, and the conditions under which they lived and fought to the corpse rats, the war field graveyards were the bodies of buried soldiers were unearthed during battle, and life under the rules of the German army, Remarque leaves no stone unturned about the conditions and subsequent effects of war upon it's soldiers. Closely paralleling Hemingway's "Soldier's Home," an account of the effects of WWI on an American soldier, All Quiet on the Western Front displays the universal effects of the war upon those who fought heroically - disillusionment with war and facing the reality of a country who, upon the soldier's return, cannot identify with his life. Estrangement and distance grows with society as the men realize that "the world they (girls & those in society) were in was not the world that he was in" ("Soldier's Home") and "men will not understand us and ... [they will] push us aside; ... the years will pass by and in the end we shall fall into ruin"(All Quiet on the Western Front 294). The similarity between men on both sides of the war reveals the universal result of war - death (if not physical then social or emotional). When, upon entering the war, Paul Baumer says, " Our early life is cut off from the moment we came here, and that without even lifting a hand" (AQWF 19), he foreshadows the life of the young soldiers who must face war without a choice and whose life pays the ultimate price of victory for his country. But will Paul willingly sacrifice all for sake of his country? Through the griping battle scenes and the loss of friends to returning home to a "foreign country," All Quiet on the Western Front reveals the struggles of not only soldiers but of ordinary men forced to fight a battle against other men: "...for the first time, I see you are a man like me... Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us... forgive me comrade; how could you be my enemy?" (All Quiet On the Western Front 223) Remarque's personal experience in the war and his realization of the terror that actually occurs - man killing man - reveals the necessity of counting the cost of war and maintaining peace whenever possible. This is what we face today, and the question remains - have we learned from the past, or do we continue to tread upon the same course that leads us to destruction? It is this grim realization that caused his book to be banned and burned by the Nazi's and spread acclaim throughout the rest of the world. Spreading the truth of the real tragedy of war opened people's eyes to the reality that faced those condemned to die - a reality that faces everyone and is the same for everyone in the midst of war ... a reality that is no respecter of persons and takes all it can - a reality called death.
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