All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel

A must read for all young people. A deep dive into PTSD and the futility of war and its effects and consequences.

For someone who is interested in war novels, this one is a requirement to read. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is an excellent novel about the First World War. One of the first books published about the war it was one of the first insights of life in the trenches. This novel gave people sometimes there first experience of what it was like. Leading the way for writers and filmmakers to visualize it. All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the best books ever written for its overall imagery that’s gives a vivid image of all the aspects of life as a soldier in World War One. Paul Baumer is 18 years old and has just finished school when the war began. His schoolmaster encouraged him and his classmates to enlist for it was there divine duty to Germany. Soon in just the first week half of them are dead now being stuck in a trench surrounded by artillery bombardment. One interesting use the book does is how the protagonist is a German soldier as well being written by a German soldier. Many consider Germany as the enemy during the Great War so having a German enlisted man gives a shape to opinion of those who read it. How all the armies whether German, French, British or Russian, every soldier was a man with a life suffering in war. Another is how it tells all the aspect of a soldier in World War one. The book does not tell the whole story inside the trenches as Paul Baumer experiences other parts of life during warfare. When Paul goes on leave returning home, when he worked at a prisoner of war camp, when he was hospitalized surrounded by slowly dying men. Each moment gives a visual and emotional pull of how each felt. The last is its use of imagery. This novel cares one of the best uses of imagery in how it tells life in the trenches. How men spend months living in holes full of mud with only rations to eat and nothing to entertain oneself but small talk and cigarettes. How you could die at any moment in dozens of ways by artillery, gas, snipers, disease or just standing three inches to far to the left at the wrong time. The book doesn’t just say what happens but the emotional aspect it as well. How Paul describes how you must separate your emotions fully from yourself because if you think to hard where you are, you will go crazy. In the war Paul says “there is no liberation, no freedom, no pride, only death.” All Quit on the Western Front is a book everyone should read whether there are interested in war or not. It is a lesson of how horrible war really is and how the only thing it brings in the end is death. Everyone should know what the war was like. That it was much more than just starting WWII, a war long ago that doesn’t matter anymore, or how that could only happen during that time. The Great War changed the world forever and if we are not careful it could happen again.

This war novel was written by German author Erich Maria Remarque. This novel is about a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War I by a teacher. This novel is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits,and goes into detail about the tragedy of war through the eyes of the individuals. As the boys witness death, and mutilation all around them they become destroyed by this awful war. Erich uses different sources through his book like primary, and secondary sources so we know what they went through. When using primary Erich uses personal letters to family members, giving vivid images in a descriptive way of the fieldwork they were involved in, communication, and most of all an autobiography. The secondary sources he uses is writing this novel after the event occurred and writing other books to lean on to support his argument. For recommendation of this book I would say general readers, graduates, and specialist in this historical subject would enjoy most because they enjoy novels that incorporate some type of history time period or they enjoy the author, and specifically how he creates books. I believe the attended audience for anyone who enjoys novels about wars, and what people went through during those hard times. Overall I believe Remarque did an outstanding job in convincing me as the reader on what kind of horror they went through, and how mentally impaired you can get because of all the terrible scenes you were involved in. Remarque made the argument of his book in a unique way because he started of the book in a happy way and slowly ended with terror, and horror. The way he did so was by using a strong style of words, and descriptions. In this book Remarque adds to our understanding of a particular historical question that anyone can have. A lot of people are always curious on what they go through and why they come out different after being in a war, and so on. He really outlines these type of questions many want to understand, and gave me a clear understanding of the horrific times they went through. -Alexis

First time reading this and I'm very upset I went so long without reading it. By far the greatest war novel I've ever read. Very deep and makes you appreciate the things we usually take for granted.

Surprisingly, this is one of the few novels concerning World War I that I have found worth reading. It is widely acclaimed as "The Greatest War Novel of all Time." It may seem trite in this day and time to label a novel as "anti-war". However, this novel was written in the years immediately after World War I, a time when in many circles, war was deemed to be a glorious endeavor and romanticized, especially by those non-participants with little actual knowledge of events on "the front". While the American Civil War should have opened the eyes of potential combatants to the certainty of mass carnage presented by new technology coupled with classic military theory and technique, the European powers nevertheless stumbled blindly into the abyss. This is a VERY short novel, verging on novella. While it comes in at 295 pages, they are small pages with large type and wide spacing. It can easily be read in a single afternoon. As such, there is very little story development, apart from numerous vignettes involving Paul Baumer, a young German private, and his compatriots in the trenches. Again, the prose, while somewhat mild in current times, would have been shocking to the readers of the day. An example: Haie Westhus drags off with a great wound in his back through which the lung pulses at every breath.... We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off, they stagger on their splintered stumps into the next shell hole; a lance corporal crawls a mile and a half on his hands dragging his smashed knee after him; another goes to the dressing station and over his clasped hands bulge his intestines; we see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces; we find one man who has held the artery of his arm in his teeth for two hours in order not to bleed to death. Such things just were not discussed in polite company. It's all here: the blood and guts; the horrifying injuries, amputations and pre-antiseptic gangrene; the rats; the putrefying and spoiled food which was eaten anyway by starving troops; the dysentery; the ignorance of the German people who cling to the ideal of glorious warfare. But through it all shines the humanity of Paul and his childhood friends, as they succumb one by one. After several succeeding wars, many of which became unpopular, and hundreds of books and movies which spotlight the actual conditions faced by front line troops, this novel has lost much of its originality and shock power. Though it must be said, it was the first and it remains powerful even to this day.

I was needing to buy this book for my daughter’s class who is a sophomore in highschool. The book arrived super fast, in good condition and my daughter enjoyed reading it.

I read this book a long time ago but just now realized that I never wrote a review for it. I think I know why: no words can’t possibly describe what a true masterpiece this novel is. I’m a huge WWII history buff, but this story taking place during the horrific Great War still undoubtedly holds a special place in my heart because it’s definitely my favorite war novel. It’s strange calling a war novel “favorite” and saying how much you enjoyed reading and re-reading it, however when the most unimaginable horrors are delivered through such a beautiful, poetic prose it becomes so much more than just a war novel; it becomes a first-hand account of a broken life that has just started, a eulogy to the generation that would never return home the same, if those boys return home at all… Told from a young German boy’s - just hardly out of school - point of view, each chapter makes you not only relive all of the horrors of the war together with him but also poses eternal questions that every man fighting in the front line eventually asks himself: what is this all for? Aren’t we all brothers under our uniforms? Why all these unnecessary deaths? Why take another one of my comrades today? The gory fighting scenes described with brutal honesty are masterfully repleted with some beautiful, melancholic prose of ceasefire days; of camaraderie and glimpses of civil life on leave; of broken families and former acquaintances - all of which suddenly loses its very meaning after the horror one will never forget once he lived through it. Incredibly touching and almost painfully truthful at times, this novel should definitely be on everyone’s must-read list. It’s one of those novels that will stay with you forever once you dive into its dark, riveting depth.

When I started this book I had no idea what to expect, as I had never heard of this book before. I became interested in WW1 after watching a documentary, and after a Google search I found this book was the authoritative read for what WW1 was like first hand. I was not prepared for this book and the details that were held inside. The death and despair of WW1 was not something I was even faintly aware of. Sensitive readers be warned, as this book contains the details of death and war. This book was a roller coaster of emotions, from warmth to laughing to crying to that heart sinking feeling of hopelessness, and the sense that your idea of reality has been shattered and dejected. This is a powerful book, and it's been around the world for a reason. That being said, Erich's writing is truly masterful. The way he puts things into words makes you feel like you were actually there, in the main characters boots, feeling his emotions and thinking his thoughts. In fact, this book is so realistic that I don't doubt that Erich experienced the things in this book himself, since he was on the frontlines during WW1. Do yourself a favor and read this book, it is so important that we understand what war is really like, because I think if we truly understood none of us would ever subject ourselves or anybody else to this horror.

Increible lectura, recomendada 10/10, muy amena la forma de escribir, está en inglés por si lo preguntabas. La presentación es perfecta, cabe en un bolsillo de abrigo o donde sea, no ocupa mucho, buena calidad de portada y muy estetico.

Some novels eventually show their age. Not his one. Beautiful, poignant. Don't watch the terrible movie. It's not a fraction as good as the novel.

A classic of World War 1 from the German perspective. A grim reminder of just how bad it was in the trenches.

This is a must have. The book, though translated, reads like a book written natively in English. The "adventures" (or better said as lack of adventure) shown depict an aspect of warfare we commonly overlook. The book displays the destruction of warfare, and changes your view of the world. This is a must havebif you want to learn to see the humanistic factors of any disaster. The book is also much better than the movie, and the plot is completely different. Seriously, why is the movie named after the book if the plots are different?

Libro indispensable para tu lectura en inglés.