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A review by jarvvis
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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? It's complicated
5.0
Fuck.
All Quiet on The Western Front is the definitive war novel.
I’m not quite sure if I’ve ever read something so electric, so devastating, so gut-wrenching. 200 straight pages of destruction and death. Futility and pain and suffering. There’s a starkness to this book that’s mixed with the most unsettling details: getting shot in the ass isn’t as painful as other places, but the recovery is the real killer, bayonets get stuck in people’s ribs, the gas is most potent at the bottom of a shell hole. It’s eerie and raw. It’s fucking war, on a scale never before witnessed. It’s the ruination of generations.
Possibly the worst thing in this book is the tenderness. These soldiers have plenty of arguments and violence between them, but they also cannot seem to help themselves from being kind. Paul and Kat are two men who likely would have never crossed paths but in the trenches, and they form a bond unlike any other, propped up with roast geese and the gross awareness of mortality. Paul sleeps with a French girl and sees the whole potential of womankind in her. Russian POWs sing folk songs. A room full of dying men collaborate to give another dying man a chance to sleep with his wife. It is not hope, or joy, it is the animalistic instinct to be humane. It is shattering, the capacity for goodness they contain and the impossibility of expressing that.
Required reading, I believe.
All Quiet on The Western Front is the definitive war novel.
I’m not quite sure if I’ve ever read something so electric, so devastating, so gut-wrenching. 200 straight pages of destruction and death. Futility and pain and suffering. There’s a starkness to this book that’s mixed with the most unsettling details: getting shot in the ass isn’t as painful as other places, but the recovery is the real killer, bayonets get stuck in people’s ribs, the gas is most potent at the bottom of a shell hole. It’s eerie and raw. It’s fucking war, on a scale never before witnessed. It’s the ruination of generations.
Possibly the worst thing in this book is the tenderness. These soldiers have plenty of arguments and violence between them, but they also cannot seem to help themselves from being kind. Paul and Kat are two men who likely would have never crossed paths but in the trenches, and they form a bond unlike any other, propped up with roast geese and the gross awareness of mortality. Paul sleeps with a French girl and sees the whole potential of womankind in her. Russian POWs sing folk songs. A room full of dying men collaborate to give another dying man a chance to sleep with his wife. It is not hope, or joy, it is the animalistic instinct to be humane. It is shattering, the capacity for goodness they contain and the impossibility of expressing that.
Required reading, I believe.