All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Author: Erich Maria Remarque 

Title: All Quiet on the Western Front

Publisher: Vintage 

Published: 1929

Pages: 224

Genre: Historical Fiction 

     In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war. With the fire and patriotism of youth, they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young 'unknown soldier experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

      This is one of those books that has been on my list for a very long time. Honestly, I have no idea why it has taken me so long to get around to it. But never the less with the new film adaptation coming soon on Netflix, I thought I should do the right thing and read it before it comes out. It is however one of those books that are hard to review. After all, countless words have been devoted to this text and its author. What more can I add to a book that has been studied by the great and the good of the literary world. To which I can only reply who knows but I will give it my best.

     The book sets out to tell us of the true horrors of the first world war. We are thrust into the mind of an unknown soldier. I suspect to a greater extent this is indeed that of our author. But by giving our protagonist no name it allows him to become any one of a great many young men who went off to that war. Bearing in mind this book came out not a great deal of time after the end of the first world war, I would imagine it was easy for the readers to either see themselves or a loved one who went off. Either way, as we first step foot into this world we come face to face with fresh-faced and very patriotic young men. How often have the young been whipped up into a nationalistic fever by those far too old to have to actually go off to fight themselves? But as they become intoxicated by the notion of adventure and heroism there is simply no turning back for these young men. It was interesting to see how completely perfectly he had captured this feeling. That it is a part of history that forever seems to be coming back around. All we have to do is look at the current state of the world to pinpoint where its ugly head seems to be rearing back up. But it is merely the first act of a play that is as old as the human race. 

     What is to follow is just as much predictable as it is horrific to bear witness to. War will forever change those who have been through it. Their edges get bashed off and the cuts both physical and mental cut deep and will stay till the end of their time. It becomes a matter of how we carry those feelings that will denote what comes after. It becomes captivating to read how the realities of what our hero has signed up for sits at juxtaposed with what his tutor had built him up to believe. I suppose what we are seeing is the naivety and bravado of youth coming to an abrupt halt when faced with the true horrors of what the first world war was to become. As become very obvious, this is a book that could only have been written by someone who had seen these terrible events for himself. It also makes it a very difficult thing to tear yourself away from. Despite what we are witnessing you feel a very deep need to see what is to become of our hero.  For better or worse we want to know if he is to make it through this terrible war or if he is to be torn up and left in some unknown stretch of the front. 

     All Quiet on the Western Front is a book that I am sure we stay with me for a very long time after having put it down. It is not often that I have been taken aback by such a visceral vision of war. Too often we have to see that some spark of heroism take hold. That our hero will rise above and bring honor to Flag and country. But here we see the true futility of it all. That in the end, those who have their feet in the mud will never gain anything from the blood they shed. All they can hope for is that they can come out of it mostly intact and that the demons that have taken ahold of them do not lash out at those closest to them. It is a book that I can recommend but one that you must be in the right frame of mind to tackle.