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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
It’s hard to find the words, but I will.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a beautifully written, harrowing and eye-opening account of life on the frontlines of the First World War. Told through the eyes of Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier, it captures the brutality of trench warfare and the deep emotional impact it has on those who live through it. Paul’s longing for his old life comes through powerfully in lines like “I want to get that quiet rapture back, feel again, just as before, that fierce and unnamed passion I used to feel when I looked at my books.” That sense of something precious being lost forever runs through the whole novel, and it’s heartbreaking.
Remarque doesn’t just show the violence and chaos of war. He shows how empty and senseless it is. “So why is there a war at all?” Tjaden asks. “There must be some people who find the war worthwhile,” comes the reply. One line that really stayed with me was “The train goes slowly. From time to time it stops, so that the dead can be taken off. It stops a lot.” Quiet, understated and devastating.
This book is a stark reminder of the human cost of war. It left me feeling both moved and unsettled, and I think that’s exactly the point.
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a beautifully written, harrowing and eye-opening account of life on the frontlines of the First World War. Told through the eyes of Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier, it captures the brutality of trench warfare and the deep emotional impact it has on those who live through it. Paul’s longing for his old life comes through powerfully in lines like “I want to get that quiet rapture back, feel again, just as before, that fierce and unnamed passion I used to feel when I looked at my books.” That sense of something precious being lost forever runs through the whole novel, and it’s heartbreaking.
Remarque doesn’t just show the violence and chaos of war. He shows how empty and senseless it is. “So why is there a war at all?” Tjaden asks. “There must be some people who find the war worthwhile,” comes the reply. One line that really stayed with me was “The train goes slowly. From time to time it stops, so that the dead can be taken off. It stops a lot.” Quiet, understated and devastating.
This book is a stark reminder of the human cost of war. It left me feeling both moved and unsettled, and I think that’s exactly the point.
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Perfect encapsulation of the horrors of war, very interesting rumination on international politics at the end
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It was a good anti-war book that describes the horrors and helplessness of war, especially the hopeless fighting that was trench warfare in World War I.
One thing that struck me about the book was the meaninglessness of the whole thing. Unlike just wars like that of World War II, this conflict is so widely described as meaningless by everyone but the most fervent nationalistic drummers of war at the time. When Paul visits his hometown on leave, and speaks to people, none of them really grasp how awful it is. They see it in abstract political terms. They want their country to "win" for vain and immaterial reasons. And these are how the few people with power are described as thinking in the book. Had those 30 or so powerful people been made to fight on the front for a month, the war would have ended immediately.
It was interesting to see how a once feared and respected teacher that convinced his entire class to sign up to fight was reduced to a fledgling recruit that is bossed around by a former student. Paul's class learn the lesson too late that adults and authority figures are just flawed people too, that don't actually always know what is best.
There was also a huge amount of contrast in the book, constantly switching between the front and away from it. Remarque describes the front as a living thing, flowing with electricity that reverts anyone who steps near it back into an animal acting only on instinct. When a shell was heard flying through the air, the animal instinct would fling the person it is controlling into the living earth before they could consciously act.
Then behind the front, the soldiers switch immediately back to a a lighthearted mood, joking with each other, and finding food. But the front is always booming in the background, they can never fully escape it, and have to constantly dread having to go back.
Another thing that struck me was Paul stuck in the shell hole in no man's land for days on end, where he stabs a French soldier who hops into it, out of crazed fear of an abstract enemy soldier, but immediately regrets it and almost goes mad as he humanizes what was once an abstract concept. Going so far as to say that he wishes he could die in his place, and that he wanted to write the dying soldiers family and give them money to try and make things right of his terrible act. Only for him to eventually return to his friends in the trench and forget all about it, for he would go mad otherwise.
But in is craze and guilt, he realizes the banality of it all. This French soldier is just a man with a wife and child, with a normal job, who he, for no reason other than that he was born in an "enemy" country, was forced to stab and kill. I think one of the take home messages of the book is to not let tribalism take away individuality. Paul and most of the soldiers in their time fighting never seem to have a good reason for fighting, it was just something they were tricked into by Kantorek and now have to see through. For just a small amount of time, they succumbed to the feelings of tribalism, a nationalistic fervor for their country, and are doomed to hell because of it. They themselves as individuals are lost to the front.
One thing that struck me about the book was the meaninglessness of the whole thing. Unlike just wars like that of World War II, this conflict is so widely described as meaningless by everyone but the most fervent nationalistic drummers of war at the time. When Paul visits his hometown on leave, and speaks to people, none of them really grasp how awful it is. They see it in abstract political terms. They want their country to "win" for vain and immaterial reasons. And these are how the few people with power are described as thinking in the book. Had those 30 or so powerful people been made to fight on the front for a month, the war would have ended immediately.
It was interesting to see how a once feared and respected teacher that convinced his entire class to sign up to fight was reduced to a fledgling recruit that is bossed around by a former student. Paul's class learn the lesson too late that adults and authority figures are just flawed people too, that don't actually always know what is best.
There was also a huge amount of contrast in the book, constantly switching between the front and away from it. Remarque describes the front as a living thing, flowing with electricity that reverts anyone who steps near it back into an animal acting only on instinct. When a shell was heard flying through the air, the animal instinct would fling the person it is controlling into the living earth before they could consciously act.
Then behind the front, the soldiers switch immediately back to a a lighthearted mood, joking with each other, and finding food. But the front is always booming in the background, they can never fully escape it, and have to constantly dread having to go back.
Another thing that struck me was Paul stuck in the shell hole in no man's land for days on end, where he stabs a French soldier who hops into it, out of crazed fear of an abstract enemy soldier, but immediately regrets it and almost goes mad as he humanizes what was once an abstract concept. Going so far as to say that he wishes he could die in his place, and that he wanted to write the dying soldiers family and give them money to try and make things right of his terrible act. Only for him to eventually return to his friends in the trench and forget all about it, for he would go mad otherwise.
But in is craze and guilt, he realizes the banality of it all. This French soldier is just a man with a wife and child, with a normal job, who he, for no reason other than that he was born in an "enemy" country, was forced to stab and kill. I think one of the take home messages of the book is to not let tribalism take away individuality. Paul and most of the soldiers in their time fighting never seem to have a good reason for fighting, it was just something they were tricked into by Kantorek and now have to see through. For just a small amount of time, they succumbed to the feelings of tribalism, a nationalistic fervor for their country, and are doomed to hell because of it. They themselves as individuals are lost to the front.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
