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Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) Review

The events of this book are apparently fiction, yet it is reality. It is a reality which Remarque knew from experience, and which he urgently sought to impress on a world which piously said, "lest we forget", yet had never really known to begin with. Forged in this fire, Remarque emerged with a mission to warn the world of the Beast of War, resulting in this, possibly the most powerful of all novels of war. It does not preach of the wrongs of war. It simply describes life in the trenches, a war that the 19th-Century glory-seeking sensibilities of the politicians and the patriotic gullibility of the public at home never imagined.

Remarque, born Remark and later re-adopting the earlier, French spelling, was born in Osnabrück, a town where I spent some years, and lived his last years in Switzerland, a country where I am now spending some years. He fought in the trenches, knowing whereof he writes, and was wounded several times, in a country I also know fairly well and where every single village churchyard has a monument bearing lists of names of the fallen longer than today's telephone book. This book speaks from the first person of a young man who has enlisted before he was old enough to know any other trade, and learned to survive on the front. His core of friends, slowly whittled away, are the old lags of their section of the lines. With instincts that tell them when to duck an incoming shell and where to forage up a stolen goose, they live only for the day and for their few friends as the German army slowly starves and rusts, while the French and British and finally the Americans eat their plentiful corned beef, develop their tanks, and grow stronger.

Remarque's writing style is rivetting. Spare and clean, his sentences in the English translation light a fire in the mind. I went through this book in two days, a rate at which I have not read for a decade.

"Earth with thy folds, and hollows, and holes, into which a man may fling himself and crouch down. In the spasm of terror, under the hailing of annihilation, in the bellowing death of the explosions, O Earth, thou grantest us the great resisting surge of new-won life."

"...just think of those pamphlets the prisoners have on them, where it say that we eat Belgian children. The fellows who write those lies ought to go out and hang themselves. They are real culprits."

"We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial - I believe we are lost."

Harrowing reading, and an indispensable lesson for the budding patriot.

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) Overview

ONE OF TWELVE TITLES IN VINTAGE'S A FORMAT WAR PROMOTION The Greatest Novel about the First World War and an International Bestseller All Quiet on the Western Front is probably the most famous anti-war novel ever written. The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in mind, there is no sense of adventure here, only the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war - of any war - told for a whole generation of victims.

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Customer Reviews

A book full of atmosphere that puts you right in the situation of war - Ronnie Lee - Hong Kong
This is a great book that puts you in a position to see how a soldier lived his daily life in World War One. It shows much emotion in a very soft and dreamy way yet within the reality of a cold, hard and fatal war. It follows a soldier who is naive yet learns his way through his war and touches the heart through his perception of the mysterious paths that he crosses. As his experience grows he finds the good and bad in his journey and he expresses much of what a soldier may feel in his youth. It is a sentimental walk in and out of war and a genuine look at a soldiers life in one of the most historic and important times.

A little beat up, but good. - Grace -
This, along with one other book, was the first to come in. They were pretty fast in getting here, which is good, and the price was right. You can tell its well used, but not beyond further use especially got the class its for.

An anti-war statement without peer...from a German soldier, yet - JamesA -
All Quiet on the Western Front has been on book lists since my high school days. I should have read and re-read it many years ago. It is only the first statement I ever read from a German Foot Soldier...a hero in my eyes. The author, Erich Remarque, was wounded five times in the "Great War". The book was Banned by the Nazis, maybe the best reason to read it. It begins in naive sounding prose, giving the background for the strong friendships that develop later, under fire. The first-person account of Paul Baumer relates the painful deaths of his buddies, one by one, and his first wartime kill...a French soldier who jumps into his shell crater. In hand to hand combat, Paul fatally stabs the soldier, but vainly attempts to save him, as he reasons that neither should be in the situation. The final straw is the unsuccessful attempt he makes to save his closest buddy, Kat. The sadness is palpable and intense. I must re-read this magnificent work.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010