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Summary: I read this 25 years ago; it's still the Best Book ever read
Review: You can just feel the emotions along with the characters as they are experiencing the hell of a war they didn't create. Remarque's ability to describe the sensations lets the reader participate in the agony. Anyone reading this should be a pacifist forevermore. It should be required reading for future politicians (the ones who start the wars)!
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Summary: Powerful, moving, absolutely riveting...
Review: Remarque gives us his view of the war, astonishingly enough (or not) from a German perspective. His view is not pleasant, it does not glorify war in the least, from the farm battle sequence to the gutsy final chapters, the protaganist Paul Baumer takes the reader on a journey he (she) won't soon forget. It's no wonder this book was banned shortly after its release in Germany. Hitler simply detested the novel, and most likely many members of the Nazi party did likewise. The novel certainly would not stir patriotism to fight for one's country, nor would it stir up a desire to join the fighting front like so many German youths were doing in the late 30s as World War II silently crept upon them. It is an anti-war novel at its finest. Most anti-war novels do it in one of two ways, it does so with humour (Catch-22) or it does so with detestable, grosse violence. Although, All Quiet on the Western Front contains a little bit of both, where it really hits home is with the dialogue. It's so brilliantly, (and almost effortlesssly it seems at times), written, that it personifies the feelings of the average German soldier: tired, hungry, wounded, and completely demoralized. All Quiet on the Western Front is one of those rare novels, that explains a horrifying period in the world's history with an unbiased, almost simplified approach. For an understanding of the War from the perspective of the "Enemy" and an understanding of the feelings of soldiers during war in general read Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Westen Front.
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Summary: A thorn and a rose
Review: I'll admit it... I'm not that smart. I probably would not have read this book on my own. I can get bored easily. So I read All Quiet because I was assigned to in school. It's a complete surprise to me (and to those who know me) that this book is now on my list of favorites. I see this book fulfilling a purpose much like Saving Private Ryan. War is not a glorious thing. War is ugly. War is grisly and gory and effects everyone involved, fighting or at home, deeply. I found this novel to be a clear wake up call as to the true evils of war, which my generation has never experienced and does not really know. Buried in this realism, however, is a literary gem. Remarque's writing presents this starkness in such poetry that I found myself wanting to read out loud, just to feel the cadences of the words. The novel is beautiful at the same time as it is ugly. That is true mastery of the written language.
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Summary: Depressing novel revealing a rich character...
Review: As a history buff, I find myself pulled towards the romantic side of war. Although my views are quite regularly blown away with each new wartime history that I read, few others did it so completely ("Iron Coffins" by Herbert A. Werner is definitely on par with this book). "All Quiet on the Western Front" dissects a normal soldier (enemy soldier, depending on where you are on the globe) into a perfectly normal, emotional young man. You not only are able to see the terrible waste of life that epitomizes WWI as a whole, you also see one soldier's attempt at wading through the hell of war. It's amazing to think that a generation survived it, and that the world still goes on.
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Summary: An absolutely incredible look at a common soldier
Review: I had to read this book for school not too long ago, and it turned out to be one of the rare times that I was glad that a book had been forced upon me. Usually I find schoolbooks to be a waste of my time, but this one most certainly was not. As the author explains in the preface, this book is not an adventure novel. It is through and through an anti-war novel, and it stands up there with the best of them. In this book we see World War I through they eyes of a twenty-year-old German soldier. We see his horror when he learns that war isn't glorious, his connection to his friends, his eventual assimilation into the ways of the army, again his horror when he kills his first victim with his hands instead of his gun, and his gradual turn to apathy before the end. This book is a chilling, heart-wrenching look at the state of affairs and state of mind during a war. It shows us how war absolutely destroyed a generation of young men, and for what? As it is said, if you want peace, understand war. This book should be mandatory reading for everyone.
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Summary: One of the Greatest War Novels
Review: Unlike the authors of many war novels, Erich Maria Remarque does not glamorize war in this novel. He tells war the way war is: something dreadful that ruins lives and is to be avoided. As a war veteran of World War I and World War II, Remarque knows what war is, and his knowledge stands out in his novel. He tells the story in present-tense through the eyes of a German soldier Paul Baumer, who you will come to love and know as if he were a real person (perhaps he is, perhaps he is Remarque). You also come to love and know Paul's close friends. You feel everything the characters go through. Remarque wrote this book in such a way so that it really is not very hard to understand, but his wording is still beautiful, any aspiring writer (young or old) will profit from it and others will be enthralled by it. This novel will lay to rest any misconception that war is romantic, which is why I like it: it's truthful.
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Summary: All Quiet on the Western Front
Review: All Quiet on the Western Front is a great war novel written by Enrich Maria Remarque. It greatly displays the emotion and sadness that war causes. The young teenage men who enlisted in the army on both sides never recovered from their horrible experiences. They returned home with horrified minds and shattered bodies to a hard up, civilian population that often looked at them as unpleasant reminders of a war they wanted to forget. Many civilians were unable to believe that the soldiers suffered horrors far greater than what they had suffered. Many veterans could not talk about their experiences because they were so unspeakable. They were the victims, but they were also the killers. What had been done to them, they had done to others as well. The generation of men who entered their young adulthood during the war is called "the lost generation." No one expected The Great War to be as terrible as it was. Powerful men with their pride and their honor at stake chose to throw away the lives of millions rather than call an end to the deadlock of The Great War. Young men enlisted believing they were going aboard on an exciting adventure to fight for glory and honor. They thought they would be home by Christmas.
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Summary: All Quiet on the Western Front
Review: I was advised to read this book at school for GCSE History. I picked it up and then I just couldn't stop reading it, I was wrapped and enthralled by the depth the Remarque went into, and the way this made you feel for the main potagonist (Paul). I have found impossible to find a book that makes you feel this way. All in all Remarque's work was remarkable!!!
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Summary: A must read!
Review: With the exception of a trip to Hiroshima, I don't think I have ever had any other experience that has left me so dovish as my reading of this book. Little detail of the truely gruesome aspects and human misery found in war is left out of the story. However, it is not just the actual battle details that moves the reader. In fact, one of the most gripping aspects of the story, in my opinion, was the inability of the character to readjust back into society following his battle experience, even if just for a short two week leave; thereby showing that it is not just the soldier, but his or her whole family, that suffers from a war experience. From my perspective, the morality of the story was accentuated by the fact that it is told by a German footsoldier, and not an American or Brit, in that it removes any doubt that the sympathy felt for the character is due to his human nature, and not due to nationalism or cultural bias. While it is a book of fiction, the author is truly a fitting person to write such a story. As explained on the inside back cover, Erich Maria Remarque served on the front line during WWI and was even wounded five times, once critically. Perhaps this helps explain the feeling that the book was as close to the real thing that can be found, without actually being nonfiction. Read this book. I am very certain that after you do, you will, at the very least, not view the experience as time wasted.
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Summary: Powerful stuff!
Review: This book packs a punch! It is a story that transcends eras. Read this book, and then watch the movie (which is quite true to the book). This is a great war novel, perhaps even the best. It provides invaluable insight into the mind and soul of a soldier, and the conflicts that rage in his mind during The Great War, now known as World War I. This book is excellent!
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