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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
5☆
Read this a few months ago, adding now because I forgot to before. It's a story of soldiers during war, the war's impact on their lives. Overall a Masterpiece
Read this a few months ago, adding now because I forgot to before. It's a story of soldiers during war, the war's impact on their lives. Overall a Masterpiece
I’d like to reread this sometime. It’s a very human story from a perspective we don’t hear much about and reminds us that the people fighting for their governments are still human.
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
All Quiet on the Western Front has permanently changed how I view war.
War is hell. That message was repeated many times to me in my life. I believed it, but the message - it felt distant. People kill each other in war, entire nations are ruined by it and the survivors struggle long after it has ended - this I knew, but I felt like an outsider that did not truly understand these people's suffering. This book changed that. Through its vivid imagery of the hell that soldiers go through in war, of how it robs them of their individuality and turns them into mindless killing machines, of their deplorable conditions and how they can never truly go back, this book showed how horrible war truly is. It isn't all gloomy, of course - soldiers also develop a sense of camaraderie amongst each other and find many unlikely friends, and there is considerable musing about wars and emperors and orders and prisoners as well - but the book fundamentally still is about the horrors of war. Chapter 9, the part with Paul and the French soldier, was deeply, truly moving and undoubtedly my favourite.
The book is not a traditional narrative but a collection of vignettes in chronological order, and is written in first person and present tense. Regarding the characters, there isn't much to say - read and discover yourself. Kat was undoubtedly my favourite, and I very much liked his dynamic with Paul. The book truly shines in its descriptions of the horrors of war and how it traumatises the soldiers.
Overall, a must read for everyone, especially for those who do not know or understand how terrible war is.
And, if you're worried about it, I did not find the book gory at all. Sure, there's a few lines here and there, but they aren't overly detailed. The book is quite mild when it comes to gore, according to me at least, so don't let that stop you from reading it.
War is hell. That message was repeated many times to me in my life. I believed it, but the message - it felt distant. People kill each other in war, entire nations are ruined by it and the survivors struggle long after it has ended - this I knew, but I felt like an outsider that did not truly understand these people's suffering. This book changed that. Through its vivid imagery of the hell that soldiers go through in war, of how it robs them of their individuality and turns them into mindless killing machines, of their deplorable conditions and how they can never truly go back, this book showed how horrible war truly is. It isn't all gloomy, of course - soldiers also develop a sense of camaraderie amongst each other and find many unlikely friends, and there is considerable musing about wars and emperors and orders and prisoners as well - but the book fundamentally still is about the horrors of war. Chapter 9, the part with Paul and the French soldier, was deeply, truly moving and undoubtedly my favourite.
The book is not a traditional narrative but a collection of vignettes in chronological order, and is written in first person and present tense. Regarding the characters, there isn't much to say - read and discover yourself. Kat was undoubtedly my favourite, and I very much liked his dynamic with Paul. The book truly shines in its descriptions of the horrors of war and how it traumatises the soldiers.
Overall, a must read for everyone, especially for those who do not know or understand how terrible war is.
And, if you're worried about it, I did not find the book gory at all. Sure, there's a few lines here and there, but they aren't overly detailed. The book is quite mild when it comes to gore, according to me at least, so don't let that stop you from reading it.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-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
Very eloquent writing I can see why it is hailed as one of the best war books, many common themes and thoughts of war in media seem to have roots here. Themes I recognized were tribalism, loss of innocence, destruction of a generation, patriotism, and good vs evil but most of all the brutality and futility of war. Another standout feature were the horrific and detailed passages on the human bodies left behind after bombings, buddy spared nothing and was so specific it seemed his real war experience came through.
"Kantorek would say we stood on the threshold of life. And so it would seem. We had as taken no root. The war swept us away. For the others, the older men, it is but an interruption. The are able to think beyond it[...] We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a wasteland" pg.20
"He is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him." pg. 31
"I feel excited; but I do not want to be, for that is not right. I want that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless urge that I used to feel when I turned to my books. The breath of desire, shall fill me again, melt the heavy, dead lump of lead that lies somewhere in me and waken again the impatience of the future, the quick joy in the world of thought, it shall being back again the lost eagerness of my youth." pg. 171
all of pg. 194 on lack of humanity "after this annihilation of all human feeling"
"I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness; -I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will stand by me" pg. 212
"The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and say to him: 'Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death[...] Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up- take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now'. pg. 223
"And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out{...} I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another[...] all my generation is experiencing these things with me" pg. 263
"life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death; it transformed is into unthinking animals..." pg. 273
"Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way anymore." pg. 294
"Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me." pg. 295
"Kantorek would say we stood on the threshold of life. And so it would seem. We had as taken no root. The war swept us away. For the others, the older men, it is but an interruption. The are able to think beyond it[...] We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a wasteland" pg.20
"He is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him." pg. 31
"I feel excited; but I do not want to be, for that is not right. I want that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless urge that I used to feel when I turned to my books. The breath of desire, shall fill me again, melt the heavy, dead lump of lead that lies somewhere in me and waken again the impatience of the future, the quick joy in the world of thought, it shall being back again the lost eagerness of my youth." pg. 171
all of pg. 194 on lack of humanity "after this annihilation of all human feeling"
"I am no longer a shuddering speck of existence, alone in the darkness; -I belong to them and they to me; we all share the same fear and the same life, we are nearer than lovers, in a simpler, a harder way; I could bury my face in them, in these voices, these words that have saved me and will stand by me" pg. 212
"The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and say to him: 'Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death[...] Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up- take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now'. pg. 223
"And this is only one hospital, one single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out{...} I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another[...] all my generation is experiencing these things with me" pg. 263
"life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death; it transformed is into unthinking animals..." pg. 273
"Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way anymore." pg. 294
"Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me." pg. 295
Really, really depressing. I think this was the book I was supposed to read before "The Sun Also Rises"...