WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SEBASTIAN FAULKS 'We are no longer young men. We've lost any desire to conquer the world. We are refugees. We are fleeing from ourselves. From our lives. We were eighteen and had begun to love the world and to love being in it; but we had to shoot at it. The first shell to land went straight for our hearts. We've been cut of from real action, from getting on, from progress. We don't believe in those things any more; we believe in the war.' Written in memory of a generation of young men who arrived at ...
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WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SEBASTIAN FAULKS 'We are no longer young men. We've lost any desire to conquer the world. We are refugees. We are fleeing from ourselves. From our lives. We were eighteen and had begun to love the world and to love being in it; but we had to shoot at it. The first shell to land went straight for our hearts. We've been cut of from real action, from getting on, from progress. We don't believe in those things any more; we believe in the war.' Written in memory of a generation of young men who arrived at the front fresh from the schoolroom, a generation utterly devasted by war, because the few that survived were left unfit for peace; at once tender and brutal, immediate and profound - All Quiet on the Western Front is a testament to the pity, horror and waste of the First World War, and a passionate plea to prevent its repetition.
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Seller's Description:
This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. No dust jacket. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 500grams, ISBN: 9780099589563.
All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the greatest books of the twentieth century about one of the deadliest wars of the twentieth century. Erich Maria Remarque was a German soldier in World War I; in this book he develops the themes of lost youth, death, comradeship, and the senselessness of war. He tells of the dreadful sights, sounds, and smells of battle and life in the trenches as well as the disquieting experiences of bombardments, rats, and lice (as well as a bit of humor now and then). Though not an uplifting story, this is a powerful book that will change how one thinks about war and its destructive power on the human psyche; moreover, one gets a better understanding of the physical, emotional, and psychological damage that war has on those who fight it. Few books have brought me to tears; in sum, All Quiet on the Western Front is one of the saddest (and, ironically) and one of the best books I have ever read. Highly recommended.
Mariee P
Feb 5, 2013
Resonates Today
This is a wonderful book. It is beautifully written about an ugly time. Remarque shows the devastating effect of war on the mind and soul.
JENNIFER D
Jan 9, 2013
Keep This In Schools!!!
This is the most interesting book I read in high school besides some Shakespeare. It is a book about war and should be gory, awful, and sad,; in the computer age Western people forget what war can do to a person, a region, a country. The whole point IS war is gory, awful, and sad. I am going to read it again after almost 20 years, and I will never forget how changed I was after my first read.
Booky
Dec 22, 2008
Famous book and rightly so
Written by a German author after the First WW this is an antiwar book-but not antiwar in the modern sense. You are not hit over the head with moralisms. The truth of what war can be is slowly revealed through the young German soldier who tells the story. He doesn't tell us that war is hell. He tells his story simply as it unfolds and we can reach our own conclusions.
He and his friends-since-childhood are simple young men from an ordinary upbringing. They don't really know what the war is about, or even why they're in it. They only know that their personal survival depends on learning a few basic lessons very quickly.
However this book is much bigger than the sum of it's parts. It is a book that will stick in your brain and give you new ways of thinking about war-not as an abstract thing to be against-or for- but what war really means to individuals and their families and their society.
I am neither pro or con war in general. I believe there are times when war may be the only solution. I am not a person who knows a great deal about war, either. But I learned a great deal from this book about why war should always be the last solution. And what war means to those who are in it, It has left an indelible impression on me and I haven't read it in 25 years.
It it a book that should be read by anyone who wants to be a thinking person as part of a holistic viewpoint on life.
meghan
Jul 29, 2007
Horrible
This was the most awful,depressing,gory,horrible book i have ever read in my entire life. I would have quit reading it if i didn't have to read it for school. I think that this book should be banned from schools. There is not one good moment in it.
