All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria RemarqueYes, I chose to follow up a book on the Great War with a book on, well, the Great War. Actually, this one was for class, and I didn't realize until after I had finished Shaara's excellent book that the Great War was our topic for next week's history class. Well, I've read this book many times (most recently last semester) and I'm very familiar with it, but since it's a really quick read I decided to go ahead and plunge in for a couple of hours on a Monday night, having nothing better to do.
There is a reason that this book is the defining book of the Great War, particularly of its Western Front. The book is able to capture the absolute horror of the whole experience, outlining its effects on its veterans (surviving and dead alike) through the reflections of a German volunteer. The book spends more time in a philosophical quandry than actually advancing a plot, but I think that is the point. In this war, every battle is the same, and a jarring trip home functions not so much a plot device as a way to illustrate the great changes that war exacts on those who live through it.
The book was written by a German veteran himself, lending credibility to its depiction of the actual fighting, but the mindset itself seems to be grounded in the context of its writing, that is to say a downward spiralling Weimar Republic circa 1924-1925. The book is more a reflection of war than anything else, and I've found that I've been able to apply it to the mindset of soldiers in the Vietnamese Conflict as well. That said, the book can be a bit overreaching and somewhat unbelievable in parts, if only because most soldiers probably did not have the time nor energy to do as much existential self-reflection and questioning that Paul, the narrator, does.
All told, however, this is a moving memoir of a fictional soldier who, deliberately I think, embodies all the men who served in the trenches of the Western Front on both sides, and the book does an excellent job of personalizing the mental effects war has on its participants. It is a moving account of destruction of all kind, and a glimpse inside the men of a lost generation.
Grade: A
There is a reason that this book is the defining book of the Great War, particularly of its Western Front. The book is able to capture the absolute horror of the whole experience, outlining its effects on its veterans (surviving and dead alike) through the reflections of a German volunteer. The book spends more time in a philosophical quandry than actually advancing a plot, but I think that is the point. In this war, every battle is the same, and a jarring trip home functions not so much a plot device as a way to illustrate the great changes that war exacts on those who live through it.
The book was written by a German veteran himself, lending credibility to its depiction of the actual fighting, but the mindset itself seems to be grounded in the context of its writing, that is to say a downward spiralling Weimar Republic circa 1924-1925. The book is more a reflection of war than anything else, and I've found that I've been able to apply it to the mindset of soldiers in the Vietnamese Conflict as well. That said, the book can be a bit overreaching and somewhat unbelievable in parts, if only because most soldiers probably did not have the time nor energy to do as much existential self-reflection and questioning that Paul, the narrator, does.
All told, however, this is a moving memoir of a fictional soldier who, deliberately I think, embodies all the men who served in the trenches of the Western Front on both sides, and the book does an excellent job of personalizing the mental effects war has on its participants. It is a moving account of destruction of all kind, and a glimpse inside the men of a lost generation.
Grade: A
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