All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
On the cover of my copy of this novel it reads “The Greatest War Novel of All Time.” Ironically, this novel is an antiwar novel. I guess you are confused about how this could be. The novel does talk about war, all 296 pages, but it talks about war to emphasize the importance of peace.
The main character, Paul Bäumer, is a young soldier in WWI. He voluntarily enlists with his classmates as soon as he is old enough --just like young men across the pond. Paul also is a German soldier. His elders had told him of the glories and satisfaction of war and he believed them enough to enlist in the German army. At first Paul and his classmates are excited to enlist, full of romantic notions about war. When they start training, they realize that the army does not care for these notions or for their intelligence. All the army wants from them are drills and “a renunciation of personality.”
“We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.”
Paul and his comrades fight and kill at point blank range. The soldiers spent countless hours in the trenches throwing bombs or hiding from bombs themselves. They become closer then lovers in the companionship created by daily risking their lives. They dreamof visiting their homes and families. Some of the soldiers get injured and lose hope of living. Paul and his comrades are separated for a bit as some are in the hospital and others like Paul are given leave.
Strangely enough when Paul goes home, he finds he does not belong in that atmosphere anymore. He feels like an outsider in his own home. The war has changed Paul to the point thathe feels more comfortable on the front line, then in the peaceful town he grew up in. To me, Paul feeling as an outsider makes me dreadfully sad. I even cried a little.It made me think of what kind of future was in store for him if he ever returned permanently. The psychologic damage of the war could cause Paul to suffer depression. I wonder how many veterans felt like this when they first went home and how many still fill like this.
Paul is relieved to return to the line enters another cycle of fighting and killing. He gets wounded twice and recovers well. Some of his friends are not so lucky. Paul and his remaining have some moments of happiness like finding good food in an abandoned town . At one point, Paul guards a prisoner camp full of Russians and recognizes that these men are no different then him ; Paul no longer understands why he is fighting them. He shakes off these feelings enough to go back to the line again.A few years pass by and Paul ends up being one of the last of his group of friends . He has no hope, no dreams,no feelings left . He is just tired of life.
The novel doesn’t end there but of course I want you to read the ending for yourself.
Erich Maria Remarque fought in World War I, like Bäumer. Because of this, Remarque describes everything from the whistling of shells and the gruesomeness of wounds in stunning detail. I am not the writer Remarque is and cannot do his descriptions justice, so you must read the book .
This book might not be for those with vivid imaginations. I know I was haunted by some of the images Remarque presents to you but I could not put the book down. Like a bad dream, the images went away, but then all I could think of was how hard it would be for those images be your daily visions or daily nightmares.
Remarque concentrates especially on the horrors of the war and how they made people inhuman. Focusing on those aspects of war, Remarque seems to be advocating an end to wars, peace—which I couldn’t agree with more. In my opinion, Remarque’s technique of describing to the reader war so vividly is very effective in turning the reader to the antiwar side. This book made me feel disgusted with humanity for ever raising a weapon against each other.
Despite the images and the emotions I saw and felt when reading this book , I did truly like it. It gave me a better appreciation for veterans ,who can function in society, because I do not know if I could do that in their shoes. I connected with Paul and realised that I am never going to face something as horrendous in my life—I should count myself lucky. I was also surprised to find the message of peace in “the greatest war novel of all time .”
Maybe if enough people read this novel there would be less war.