Reviews

Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger

captainhotbun's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

tallicagrrl81's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

3.5

bookishwendy's review

3.0

This is sort of the antidote to Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, and while both books center on the horrors of trench warfare during WWI as seen through a German Soldier's eyes, the similarities stop there. To be fair, these two books should not really be compared. While Remarque created an emotionally moving novel with an anti-war theme, Storm of Steel is the author's memoir of his lieutenancy on the Western Front. The 3 year memoir covers 1916 to 1918 and much was pulled directly from Junger's diary entries. As such, it is not a novel. Eventually the battle scenes seem to merge into one indistinguishable swirling mass of mustard gas and explosions that it can be a struggle to get through. There is no story arc as such, and the secondary characters pop up only to be killed off in the space of a page. Some are introduced in passing a statistics of the carnage Junger seems to have grown numb to, a terse report of death, as in "Corporal H fell today from a bullet wound from the neck. Junger himself, however, does change rapidly over the course of his journaling, quickly adapting to his minute-to-minute life in the trench. A fresh recruit in the early pages, he soon takes an officer's commission, and by the final offensive doesn't even bother wearing a helmet anymore unless the situation "gets really dicey"( he leads ambushes with his head uncovered).

While the battle images, brutality and climbing body counts will likewise numb the reader before the end of this book, Junger's vivid, cinematic evocation of war is worth it. It's possible to see, in Junger's emotionally distant, hardened narrative voice, how this book has been considered a war-mongering work inspirational to German soldiers of the second World War, but Junger doesn't preach politics, gloss over or romanticize his experience. Stoic as he presents himself, even he admits to breaking down in tears on the field before his men and needing days to recover. That's realism.

torjus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

thorinpalmer's review against another edition

dark informative tense medium-paced

5.0

The Storm of Steel was a really good book. I never felt bored while reading it and learned a lot about how soldiers (especially the Strumtruppen) fought in the Great War.

t0nym3atballs's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

3.5

scodoc's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

masyessam's review against another edition

5.0

Jünger's description of the Great War as a transcendental experience almost makes you wish you could've been there, until this or that friend is described as being torn to pieces in an instant by random chance :0

demonxore's review against another edition

challenging dark informative tense medium-paced

4.0

This is the first-hand account of a badass muthafucka who somehow had a good luck fairy sitting on his shoulder throughout the whole of WWI from start to finish. I don't think it mattered to this guy which side he was on, he was just good at fighting and was always up to his responsibility. But don't mistake this as a reflection on a pleasure cruise - there are plenty of descriptions of the horrors of war in this memoir. 

nickl1223's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

3.0

Great for a particular reading preference. Suppose you're very interested in the specific mechanics of battles during the Great War from a soldier's perspective. In that case, this book is excellent for you, and it's even better from the German side, considering most literature focuses on the French or the British. If you're looking for a historical book about the war from a political and general standpoint, this book isn't for you.