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All Quiet on the Western Front (平装)
by Erich Maria Remarque
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Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 98.00
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¥ 88.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Written in brilliant prose and disturbingly dispassionate tone, All Quiet is a seminal work on the horrors of war. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 8 items |
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New York Times Book Review (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first trank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure. |
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Sean (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Hyped as the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front had certainly piqued my interest. I must say I wasn't disappointed. Remarque delivers a biting, scathing criticism of a meaningless and cruel war and its dehumanizing effects on the "Lost Generation."
Contrary to previous war novels romanticizing the ideals of patriotism and heroism, Remarque delivers a poignant story of a German soldier's survival on the front lines of World War I. In the pragmatic life of warfare, there are no grandiose ideals of nationalism, nor any dreams of heroism. There is only one pervading thought - survival at all costs. The ultimate goal of the soldiers is to live another day. And whatever that may entail, not matter how horrific, they will do it
The soldiers are pawns - one homogenous, interchangeable group - to their leaders. All individuality and humanism is stripped from their meager lives. The heir of a fine set of boots from a dying soldier are more important than the human life lost. Yet, the soldiers know that they are pawns but are powerless to change anything. They are mere animals, who use their instinct for survival to live another day.
The soldiers are alienated from society and are separated from the society of their homeland. As the brotherhood of soldiers contemplate their roles in a postwar society, they cannot grasp at anything. Not only is their innocence lost, but their future is bleak and meaningless as well. Even if they are able to survive the front lines and return homes, they are living corpses, shells of human beings who have been irrevocably damaged by the war. Indeed, they are the "Lost Generation," whether they are able to return home or are rotting in the ground.
The abject futility and meaningless of war pervades throughout the novel. As the war progresses, the talk of armistice intrigues and tortures the soldiers simultaneously, as they know that any day may bring their death, no matter how close to peace they are. They know they are fighting a losing war but must continue to do so, despite its futility. Indeed, the Russian prisoners and their French combatant enemies are viewed on the same moral level as the soldiers. They are no different than them except for the language, as many of them are peasants and farmers and only maim and kill because they are ordered to and have been subjected to mindless propaganda. On a basic level, the soldiers are all the same, no matter which side they fight on.
Remarque uses a terse, direct style to convey the horrors of the frontline and strip away any flowery sense of existence. Yet, the words he uses are powerful and reveal a cold, heartless war that is bereft of ideals. Through the first-person narration of Paul, Remarque delivers the content that seems to be much more personal than if a third person narrator was utilized. Indeed, it is easy to imagine the horrific sights of "No Man's Land" and the mangled corpses and putrefying bodies.
Overall, this novel certainly deserved to be hailed as a great war (anti-war) novel. It is easy to see why this book was burned during the Third Reich, as the "Fuhrer" could not have been too happy with Remarque's views on patriotism and war. However, this novel holds certain universal truths that cannot be ignored. Superb.
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Jim Leonard (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Erich Maria Remarque is one of the most brilliant minds of the last hundred years. He captures the cruelty and horror or war in its most brutal form. The protagonist, a German soldier, Paul Baumer, goes through unrefined hell as he journeys through the most violent and devestating years of his life. From the front line, trenches are blown apart and splintered during each bombardment. Constantly he fights for his life, there is no time for sentimentality, even less for one's own thoughts. He is opened unto a world unlike the world he left behind. As for the home front, things aren't much better with supplies running low and a lost sense of warfare. Within a small time lapse of their first battle, Kemmerich, a good friend of Baumer is wounded in the leg. Kemmerich dies within a relatively short period of time; in a dressing station where death is rampant and surgeons cut off limbs at the slightest sign of injury. With Kemmerich's death begins a novel, so real, that it is as if the battles and the guns still fired to this day, and in a way they do, just on a different front. There's only one way to have quiet on a front, and I'll leave to your imagination just as to how. |
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Octavius (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
'War devours everything” is the general theme of Erich Maria Remarque's famous novel. The story is a first-person narrative detailing the life of its author, Paul Baumer, during the period of The Great War from 1916- 1918. Baumer just graduated from high school and, like every other good German, he signs up for the war along with his classmates to serve his Fatherland: it is the ideal that has been pounded into them by their government, school teachers, and elders. At first all gleaming with overconfidence, the narrator and his friends soon realize that there's no glory in war even if one has dutifuly served the Fatherland and received an Iron Cross pinned to their chest by the Kaiser himself.
The narrative uses the characters to show how the reality of war, in one way or another, destroys or consumes the vitality of life: it is rich in showing the futility and beastiality of war. Remarque in effect explores the two main schools of thought that occupied intellectual discussion at the turn of the 20th century; positivists such as Bertrand Russel who thought that modern progress was a positive factor to humanity if guided by moral values and, the school of nihilism advanced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others arguing that morality was simply a conventional rationalization of an objectively purposeless existence. Baumer and his friends are, at first, positivists: despite the war, they're all still obsessed with youthful notions of duty to the state and their dreams of becoming artists/writers, theologists, farmers, and foresters. When they arrive at the front, their sergeant is the sobering pragmatist who teaches the youths to dispense with their naive idealism and to bear only the brutal reality of war in their thoughts. He teaches them the practical skills of good soldiering by keeping dry and finding good food. He teaches them to survive by using their shovels to decapitate the enemy instead of the fixed bayonet. Slowly but surely, each of the narrator's friends become victims of the war despite their idealism: some of them are killed precisely because of their idealism. In short, the narrative subtly explores every possible facet of war in how it permanently destroys, disfigures, or otherwise changes life and the human spirit: it explores the utter futility and dehumanization of war. Although one follows Baumer's optimism throughout the story, one realizes that optimism ultimately changes nothing in terms of the reality of war: only one's perception of it. The story actually leaves the question open as to whether an optimistic outlook serves any purpose at all in either war or peace. Remarque himself claims at the beginning of his work that it is not a critique or evaluation and certainly not an adventure story but simply an account of the lives of a few men fighting in a long and gruesome war.
This is a great work on the horrors of war and particularly modern mechanized warfare. Beyond the fact that it could have been avoided, the most horrid thing about WWI is the toll it took on the generations of men who fought in it. By the war's end, about 75% of the male population ages 17-35 in Germany and France was either dead or permanently disabled by the war in one way or another. Of those who were injured, many were amputees, horribly maimed/disfigured, or suffering permanent neurological damage from exposure to mustard gas. WWI was also the last war in which soldiers had statistically a higher chance of dying from disease and deprivations than from combat; penicillin was yet to be discovered and medical facilities/care remained primitive. Most limb injuries tended to be amputated to avoid scepsis and blood transfusions were not really known. Most wounded soldiers died simply of blood loss/shock; those who survived often died from various viral/bacterial infections. In reciting such grim details, Remarque's narrative is far from being a tragic epic in the style of the Iliad where great champions died gloriously in combat. For Remarque, there's no glory in war; the only glory is to survive it. Remarque's characters are only ordinary men who try to survive a horrid war the best they can. None of the characters seek to be heroes in this story although many perform heroic feats to save their commarades. This is a true classic of Western literature and is worthy of reading.
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David Wilson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
The phrase "war is hell" has been repeated often enough for it to have lost any potency. Used by war protesters and supporters alike, the expression provokes no thought whatsoever. In my opinion, Erich Remarque's greatest achievement with All Quiet on the Western Front is to capture the reader's imagination in ways that go beyond empty rhetoric. With morbid detail, he explores the question, "What do we ask of our youth when we send them to war?" In his story, soldiers do not merely risk their lives, they go to war with the GUARANTEE that it will destroy them regardless of whether or not they survive in a physical sense.
The descriptions of mutilation and barbarism are enough to cause one to condemn war outright. But - at the risk of sounding trite - perhaps even more compelling is the way the characters are forced to put aside their humanity in an effort to cope with their own savagery. When the heat of battle subsides, the soldiers do not ponder their actions philosophically, but instead focus on practical matters such as who will inherit their dead friend's boots. This is not to say that they are indifferent to or disregard the loss of human life. Rather, they have become accustomed to it.
We do get glimpses of the pains the characters carry with them, and it evokes a kind of sorrow that does not produce tears but a profound sense of hollowness. For instance, we usually find comfort in the idea of having our whole lives ahead of us, but for the main character, Paul Baumer, life has lost its splendor. As much as he hates the war, he feels more attached to life when dodging machine gun fire than he does spending time on leave with his family. For him, his future after the war is as terrifying as death.
I do not claim to know what it is like to fight in a war, nor do I believe that war is always avoidable and unnecessary. But having read this book, I have a greater appreciation for its significance.
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Frost (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
All Quiet on the Western Front is a story of World War II told from a very different perspective than we are used to, the perspective of a German soldier. It is the story of Paul Baumer who, bored of his life, decides to join the army. In the story the reader follow Paul from the front lines to his home and everywhere in between. The reader also sees Paul's growth from a young up-beat teenager to a grown man who is stuck in the sort of depression that surrounds the war and everyone in it. This trans- formation occurs somewhere between losing a close friend, being stuck in a trench for days of bombardments, and killing another man. Paul's life is changed forever by this war and that is evident when he returns home and immediately becomes depressed because of how little the people there know about what is happening to all of the men in the trenches. This story is a very tragic one and there are a lot of bad things that happen to Paul throughout his experience in the war.
This book shows us a lot about the German culture from which it emerged. It shows us how the war created a sort of split society. There were the people who didn't get involved in the war. Their lives went on the same that they always had and to them the war was nothing more than a story. But then there were the people who had fought in the war or had in some way been victimized by it. These people's lives were changed forever. They knew what had been going on and had experienced it. Some of the things they had witnessed or been a part of would have had a huge impact on the rest of their lives. Paul thinks about this split a lot and it is very clear that there is a split.
Erich Maria Remarque does an absolutely amazing job of painting a picture for the reader. There are not many books where the reader can feel this close to the action. We also get a great feel for the way that the soldiers had to live and what hardships they endured in their everyday lives. There are many times when the reader will find themselves cheering for Paul and his friends which proves how good of an author Remarque is because these are people that almost everyone thinks of as the 'bad guys' of the war. This is a great book and it has to be one of the better war novels ever written.
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Losomasnop Hawkins (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Though I'm only fifteen, I deem myself to be quite well-read. I absolutely love reading, and my haven is found in them. Hence, having read so many books, it's always been hard for me to find the several books that I think are my ABSOLUTE favorite; it's humanly impossible to choose between the myriad titles out there!
However, upon picking up this book, All Quiet on the Western Front, which was an English assignment, I found myself captivated from the very first page. Even before reading this first page, I knew this book would be quite fascinating despite it being a school assignment, for it's written by an author who had participated on the German side of World War I, or the enemy side. All war books I've read are always from the perspective of the "good" side, but this book offers another point of view. Because of that, one gets a sense that even the enemy were human, with families that they left behind who awaited their return with sweaty palms and taut nerves.
Never had this book failed to enthrall me, not on one single page. In fact, it just got better and better with each passing line! The horrors of war, no matter from which side of the battlefield you fight, are just that: HORRORS of war; they are described "beautifully" in this fantastic piece of historical fiction.
Thus said, I recommend All Quiet on the Western Front to any individual who is looking for a good read. I know that most people would rather not pick up a historical war book on a rainy day for some light reading, but once this book is started, the insight just keeps you mezmerized...If I could, I would give this book ten stars, but though I can't do that, this book has become one of my favorite books ever, possibly the top three. |
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Rex Sheng (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
The greatest war novel All Quiet on the Western Front takes place during the late World War I (1917- 1918). It was taking place on the German and French front. The main character is Paul Baumer who enrolls with his companions in the German army of World War I. He is a young German soldier who is fighting in the war. He is the protagonist and the narrator of this novel. He is a kind, compassionate and sensitive man, but the brutal and bloody war teaches him to isolate himself from his feelings.
The main point of this war novel is based on how Paul Baumer and his war friends have innocently entered a bloody and terrible war, and each of them hoping for survival. After one by one each of Paul friends die, he wonders about his own life. He thinks if he will survive, and also thinks what it will be like without the war. His friends and him are dishonored by their own knowledge that they have been mentally scared beyond recovery. Paul overcame this by encountering hand-to-hand combat. Paul's sorrow at killing Duval hardens the novel's total elimination of the war and the separatist's government.
My opinion of this war novel written by Erich Maria Remarque is a sad and well-written book that leads the reader on a tough and horrible expedition through the examination of war and sadness. I felt that I was a German soldier living a terrifying life trying to survive and end the war. This book brought me into a world during World War I. I had never felt this sad ever. I really enjoyed this book and really felt what it was like during this time. I recommend this book to any person who loves to read about war novels or people who wants to experience different people's lives.
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1 Total 1 pages 8 items |
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