A review of the book 'All Quiet on the Western Front' written by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. This book has been translated from German by Brian Murdoch.
The book 'All Quiet on the Western Front' centers on Paul Bäumer, a German soldier on the Western Front during World War I, who arrives at the Western Front with his friends and schoolmates (Leer, Müller, Kropp, Kemmerich and a number of other characters).
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Coming up: A review of the book 'All Quiet on the Western Front' written by Erich Maria Remarque.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Im Westen nichts Neues, lit. 'Nothing New in the West') is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. This book has been translated from German by Brian Murdoch.
Author’s Note: This book is intended neither as an accusation nor as a confession, but simply as an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by the war ─ even those of it who survived the shelling.
I rarely, if at all, read (historical) fiction but this book is an exception. In fact, I came to know that it's a fiction novel only AFTER I had almost finished reading the book! I know, that was a bit dumb on my part but it also indicates how well this book has been written. Let me warn you beforehand that this book is not for the faint hearted and the content is quite graphic.
The book centers on Paul Bäumer, a German soldier on the Western Front during World War I, who arrives at the Western Front with his friends and schoolmates (Leer, Müller, Kropp, Kemmerich and a number of other characters).
While fighting at the front, Bäumer and his comrades engage in frequent battles and endure the treacherous and filthy conditions of trench warfare. This is where they see men go on living with the top of their skulls missing; see soldiers go on running when both their feet have been shot away ─ stumbling on their splintering stumps to the next shell hole. One lance-corporal crawls for half-mile on his hands, dragging his legs behind him, with both knees shattered. A man making it to the dressing station with his guts spilling over his hands as he holds them in. They see soldiers with their mouths missing, with their lower jaws missing, with their faces missing.
There is an episode where Paul has to go and visit his dead friend Kemmerich’s mother who is a trembling, sobbing woman shaking him and screaming, “Why are you still alive when he’s dead?” He then tells her that her son was shot through the heart and killed instantaneously feeling very sorry for her.
Paul is glad to return and reunite with his comrades after his return from civilian life in the town which has not changed since he went off to war, but he has: he finds that he does "not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world". Soon after, he volunteers to go on a patrol and kills a man in hand-to-hand combat for the first time. He watches the man die slowly in agony for hours. He is remorseful and devastated, asking for forgiveness from the man's corpse. He later confesses to Kat and Albert, who try to comfort him and reassure him that it is only part of the war.
Reasons for defeat given by Paul:
There are so many airmen here, and they are so skillful that they can hunt down individuals like rabbits. For every German aircraft there are five British or American ones. For every hungry, tired German soldier in the trenches there are five strong, fresh men on the enemy side. For every German army-issue loaf there are fifty cans of beef over there. We haven’t been defeated, because as soldiers we are better and more experienced; we have simply been crushed and pushed back by forces many times superior to ours.
In October 1918, Paul is finally killed on a remarkably peaceful day. The situation report from the frontline states a simple phrase: "All quiet on the Western Front." Paul's corpse displays a calm expression on its face, "as though almost glad the end had come."
The book shows war and its results, the sufferings of ordinary people, the plight of refugees, but also the doggedness of that spark of life. All Quiet on the Western Front is not a memoir, though the author has drawn on some of his own experiences in the war, and it is not a piece of historical documentation from 1918, though it is sometimes cited as if it were, but a novel. It portrays the war through the eyes of one soldier, albeit a sensitive one, the nineteen-year-old Paul Bäumer. There are few military historical details, no heroics, and the real enemy is death.
This book is beyond ratings but just for formality sake, I give it 5/5. It is a must-read for people who want to know and understand about life on the battle front.
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