4.0
All Quiet on the Western Front
ByPublisher Description
Widely acclaimed as the greatest war novel of all time, this classic tale of a young German soldier's harrowing experiences in the trenches of World War I is the basis for an Academy Award-winning film. With an introduction by bestselling author Sebastian Faulks.
When twenty-year-old Paul Bäumer and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiam. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under the first brutal bombardment in the trenches. Through the ensuing years of horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another.
Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel not only portrays in vivid detail the combatants' physical and mental trauma, but dramatizes as well the tragic detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home. Remarque's stated intention--"to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war"--remains as powerful and relevant as ever, a century after that conflict's end.
When twenty-year-old Paul Bäumer and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiam. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under the first brutal bombardment in the trenches. Through the ensuing years of horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another.
Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel not only portrays in vivid detail the combatants' physical and mental trauma, but dramatizes as well the tragic detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home. Remarque's stated intention--"to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war"--remains as powerful and relevant as ever, a century after that conflict's end.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesAll Quiet on the Western Front Reviews
4.0
“After reading this, it is fair to say that I expected more. For such a well-known book, it fell flat and didn’t tell me much at all apart from the (emphasised) suffering of German soldiers at the front of Flanders and France.
I had the idea the author wanted to show the world exactly what war did to soldiers. Though he succeeded at that, there was no plot. It was written like a collection of short stories meant to illustrate the horrors of bombardments, PTSD and comradeship. The idea was there, it just couldn’t intrigue me. I couldn’t connect with the characters in the story, a critique I consider critical for a story where the author tries to show the humanity behind soldiers fighting an indescribable and terrifying war. It’s a disappointment to me, because I would have loved to experience everything more vividly because of that and understand what was going on in their minds.”
BelievableLikeableMinor characters stand outMultilayeredUnforgettable protagonistClever plottingNonlinear narrativeSteady pacingWell-structuredAtmosphericDarkGrittyHistoricalPicturesqueRealisticSetting fits the storyVivid descriptionsBeautifully-writtenDescriptiveEasy to readSimplisticWittyAbuseDeathMurderSubstance abuseViolenceWar violence
About Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque, who was born in Germany, was drafted into the German army during World War I. Through the hazardous years following the war he worked at many occupations: schoolteacher, small-town drama critic, race-car driver, editor of a sports magazine. His first novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, was published in Germany in 1928. A brilliant success, selling more than a million copies, it was the first of many literary triumphs. When the Nazis came to power, Remarque left Germany for Switzerland. He rejected all attempts to persuade him to return, and as a result he lost his German citizenship, his books were burned, and his films banned. He went to the United States in 1938 and became a citizen in 1947. He later lived in Switzerland with his second wife, the actress Paulette Goddard. He died in September 1970.
Other books by Erich Maria Remarque
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