Today, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite novels of all time! All Quiet on the Western Front is a fantastic feat by Erich Maria Remarque. How, you ask? Well, it caused so much controversy when it was published that whole countries actually banned the book! You see, Remarque highlighted the horrors and negativity of war, and governments didn't want anyone to think of war in that way. They wanted people to be willing to go to the front line and sacrifice their lives for their country and have a sense of camaraderie while doing it. They wanted people to love war. And Remarque's book threatened that want.
This book takes place in WWI and our main character is German soldier Paul Baumer. The year is 1916 and Paul, and his friends are still hopeful. They all volunteered to fight in the war and to defend their country at the urging of a school teacher they had. They are placed on the German side of the Western Front, and--basically--anything that can go wrong will and does.
Paul, at first, cannot bare to see a dying body, let alone those that are already dead. He cannot fathom just exactly what the war may bring him. But soon, he doesn't have to. His friends are dying, he's killed too many people to count, and now, he's just going through the motions. He is experiencing nothing, it is all passing him by. He has become indifferent and numb to the war, but at the same time, chastises those who have never experienced it. At this point, he can't seem to understand how people are so emotional when they experience death. That is because death is not new to him. Not by any stretch of the word.
Remarque has made fantastic strides with this novel. I mean, to me, even the title is beautiful. He shows us the horrors of war, and doesn't hold back. Every feeling, or lack there of, is accounted for and described in this novel. He shows us how a soldier can become so inexplicably numb, and that war isn't some Uncle Sam-type of experience. It is gory, inhumane, wretched, and completely indifferent as to whose life it takes. War does not care who lives or who dies, and Remarque makes that abundantly clear.
When I read this in high school, I remember a lot of people feeling weird that the main character was a German soldier. My teacher had to explain that there were other people fighting that war other than Americans, and they were feeling the same things every other soldier felt. Plus, it showed the reader that, no matter who you are, war effects everyone in a similar and saddening way.
Now, I should add a disclaimer. This novel is about WWI, and maybe times have changed since then. I'm not going to pretend like I know because I've never been a soldier. So I can't say whether or not people feel the same way now about war (those who have experienced it at least). But, what I do know, is that every novelist who wrote a story in or aethe time between WWI and the Great Depression, highlights that hopeless feeling the Lost Generation felt, that Remarque and other novelists were all too familiar with.
I give this novel 5/5 stars.
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