A review by ed_moore
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

dark reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

“We were eighteen, and had begun to love life in the world, then had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion burst in our hearts” 

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is the first war story I have read from the German perspective, and it has at its heart that at the end of the day both sides were victims of the war, and the huge majority of casualties men with no real hatred for their enemy, but just died following orders. This is explored both in the sympathy you feel for the German protagonists, the dehumanisation of the British and French (as you would often see the Germans presented as in many pieces offer literature), and how one was forced to dehumanise to remain sane, as at the end of the day nobody there wanted to be fighting. It was a book full of endless trench conflict and violence, with harrowing images consistently, yet as partially indicated by the title has such a still feel to it throughout. 

So many of the images in this book will be burnt to my mind. Depictions of horrific injuries and death are not described lightly whatsoever by Remarque, his intentions being to heavily criticise warfare. I did try to listen to sections when ill this weekend and quote frankly I couldn’t bring myself to as I didn’t need to aggravate how sick I felt, and though there is some power in Remarque’s writing to have this harrowing effect on my body just when reading it also just felt like too much in places. 

I do need to mention the audiobook recording I had too, which was probably one of the worse I have ever read. It was recorded as if it was a wireless broadcast and there was a static hum in the background for the entire duration of the book. I genuinely can’t work out if this was an artistic choice given the topic and time period, or just really poor recording equipment, but either way it wasn’t great. 
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