From the Bookshelf of One N' Done Book Corner…

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque

Start date: May 1, 2021

Finish date: May 31, 2021

Discussion: April 2021

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April 2021

April 2021 Book Selection - The Dry
By La Tonya · 6 posts · 9 views

last updated Mar 29, 2021 10:06AM

April 2021 Book Nominations
By La Tonya · 1 post · 11 views

last updated Mar 21, 2021 07:49PM

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What Members Thought

Sep 18, 2016 Jon Nakapalau rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, favorites, war, adventure

"Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod." Dulce et Decorum Est - into the eternally quiet kingdom - as politicians rant and rail. The fact that the Nazis burned this book should put it on everyone's reading list. War likes to hide behind prosperity; but there are always those who will seek it out for their own twisted reasons. ...more

90 likes · Like · see review

Sep 22, 2018 Colleen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Whoever survives (between the ministers and generals of the two countries) , his country wins. That would be much simpler and more just than this arrangement, where the wrong people do the fighting.

At the same time he ventilates his backside (Tjaden)

I soon found out this much: -terror can be endured as long as a man simply ducks;-but it kills, if a man thinks about it.

Fear we do not know much about-terror of death, yes; but that is a different matter, that is physical.

What would become of us i ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Apr 30, 2023 La Tonya Jordan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: good-read

This is a read that will last with you for a long time regarding WW I. It takes place on the Western Front were Germany soldiers are fighting the French, British, and American soldiers. There are seven soliders who form a bond from Company 2 of 150 men and their struggles during the war. The description of the dead and the battles are hard to read but authenic. The voices and sounds of motarts and guns can be head from far away. A masterpiece of a novel. I fell in love with all the characters fo ...more

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Oct 02, 2007 Fenixbird SandS rated it really liked it

Shelves: requiredschoolreading

Rough translation from the German. Remarque's writing is very deep, and he gives rich characterizations. "All Quiet" made me get to know most of these soldiers rather intimately, for war if nothing else, reminds us of the very basic passion each of us feels for being granted another day or another moment alive. However, a lot the "flow" I believe was lost in this translation. [My essay is below] This book depicts the tragic waste of WWI aka The Great War...never knew anything about it really bef Rough translation from the German. Remarque's writing is very deep, and he gives rich characterizations. "All Quiet" made me get to know most of these soldiers rather intimately, for war if nothing else, reminds us of the very basic passion each of us feels for being granted another day or another moment alive. However, a lot the "flow" I believe was lost in this translation. [My essay is below] This book depicts the tragic waste of WWI aka The Great War...never knew anything about it really beforehand (except that it started over a dispute in Austria?? Who shot whom?)

[Note: I am renting the movie taken from this fiction novel. If YOU are also a war buff like myself, I recommend these films: "Joyeaux Noel (Merry Christmas)" (World War I) and "The Pianist" (World War II) Somehow their music themes belonged on the silver screen!

[From my essay on this book: "What was most moving of this literary work was the immediacy each solder faced. In particular when faced with the impending death of a fellow soldier, it became clear that each person’s needs were not their first priority but a clear second as they expressed empathy and compassion through extreme valor in trying to keep their wounded comrades alive when on the battlefield-- and as they face what might be their own demise.

A soldier’s perspective certainly moved this reader to retain her belief in pacifism. As "All Quiet" illustrates, there is no apparent glory in war, but rather as Remarque depicts this day-to-day acknowledgment of necessity, sheer robotic conformity and determination to meet that struggle, one has to feel admiration for these young soldiers’ incredible heart in battle. These soldiers, most of them barely more than boys, have their complete outlook changed by the war. Louis Kronenberger aptly expressed:

“It almost certainly had no such fascination for these soldiers; yet All Quiet remains, essentially, a document of men who--however else their lives were disrupted--could endure war simply as war. . .It is about youngsters who were half-puzzled over what it all meant: who were not driven to mental torture because they could not endure what they knew or check their imaginations at what they saw. They sit around, half shrewd, half näive, and speculate now and again....But there is no sense of terrible knowledge, of moral responsibility.” Source: Louis Kronenberger, "War's Horror as German Private Saw It," in The New York Times Book Review, (© 1929 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), June 2, 1929, p. 5.

This writer shares Mr. Kronenberger’s view of the soldiers lacking remorse or a sense of moral responsibility. The young age of the soldiers naturally makes them more programmable to the mechanics of battle and partially as a result of this does change the youths’ outlook on their future. Paul Baumer’s thoughts while he is on leave show how his emotions are juxtaposed between the reality of war and the now seemingly strange hopefulness and familiarity of home and family.

“I bite into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed
with my fists. I ought never to have come here. Out
there I was indifferent and often hopeless—I will never
be able to be so again. I was a soldier, and now I am
nothing but an agony for myself, for my mother, for
everything that is so comfortless and without end.

I ought never to have come on leave.” Excerpt, pp. 184-5)
. . . "] ...more

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