From the Bookshelf of Retro Chapter Chicks …

All Quiet on the Western Front

Erich Maria Remarque

Start date: June 1, 2025

Finish date: June 30, 2025

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What Members Thought

Aug 05, 2018 Candi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics-shelf, favorites, historical-fiction, book-i-own, ww-1

"It’s unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning."

This slim novel about the horror of the World War I trenches and the senselessness of war was published in 1929. If you open this book up today, it is absolutely just as relevant now as it was decades ago. It is powerful and breathtaking. I finished my second reading of this last month and barely a day goes by without me thinking about it. I had read “All Quiet” fo "It’s unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning."

This slim novel about the horror of the World War I trenches and the senselessness of war was published in 1929. If you open this book up today, it is absolutely just as relevant now as it was decades ago. It is powerful and breathtaking. I finished my second reading of this last month and barely a day goes by without me thinking about it. I had read “All Quiet” for the first time ages ago and the haunting feeling I had then has stayed with me all these years. If you have not ever read this book, you must do so. It is that meaningful.

"Shells, gas clouds, and flotillas of tanks – shattering, corroding, death. Dysentery, influenza, typhus – scalding, choking, death. Trenches, hospitals, the common grave – there are no other possibilities."

This is a story of a German soldier, Paul Bäumer, and his comrades. Since the book is so widely known and reviewed here on Goodreads, I won’t go into plot details. But I want to make note of some portions that affected me quite deeply. For instance, Remarque so clearly reflects the feeling of camaraderie that these men, most of them not even twenty years old, experienced in the field and on the front. These were some of the most moving passages of the novel.

"These voices, these quiet words, these footsteps in the trench behind me recall me at a bound from the terrible loneliness and fear of death by which I had been almost destroyed. They are more to me than life, these voices, they are more than motherliness and more than fear; they are the strongest, most comforting thing there is anywhere; they are the voices of my comrades."

I’ve never read such stirring words about the soldier’s intimacy with not a woman, but rather with the very earth itself. The writing is truly remarkable.

"To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often forever."

When Paul goes home on leave, he finds that the life he once knew and loved no longer has the same meaning. His books, his case of butterflies and his piano no longer bring him the joy they once had. He cannot speak of what he has seen; he feels that those that have not been on the front and mired in the trenches can truly understand him. He feels alone. I was heartbroken when he cried out for his lost childhood.

"Ah! Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child – why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self-controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hang short, boy’s trousers – it is such a little time ago, why is it over?"

I don’t know if a book exists that so effectively conveys the meaninglessness of war. If there is another, I have yet to read it. I suspect that Remarque had a marked influence on many authors writing about the topic since, but I don’t think this one can be beat in its simple yet passionate and well-expressed message. There were moments of fleeting pleasures and true companionship that allowed me to intermittently rejoice along with Paul and dream of a future when the war would be ended. But I also keenly felt his moments of hopelessness and despair. I nodded my head when he recognized in the enemy a man much like himself. His sense of humanity truly shined at these times. Something as basic as the sharing of cigarettes with the Russian prisoners was very telling.

"I take out my cigarettes, break each one in half and give them to the Russians. They bow to me and then light the cigarettes. Now red points glow in every face. They comfort me; it looks as though there were little windows in dark village cottages saying that behind them are rooms full of peace."

Ah, if only this book could be read everywhere by everyone. Perhaps then we could all see the reflection of ourselves, our mothers, our fathers, our brothers and sisters, and our lovers in the face of another human being. Could we then avoid the devastation of war? This book deserves a place on your bookshelf. Grab a copy if you haven’t already. Mine is sitting on my all-time favorites shelf.

"I think it is more of a kind of fever. No one in particular wants it, and then all at once there it is. We didn’t want the war, the others say the same thing – and yet half the world is in it all the same." ...more

278 likes · Like · see review

Nov 30, 2020 Book Concierge rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, classic, library, concierge, literature, war, germany, france, world-war-1

Book on CD narrated by Frank Muller.
4****

From the book jacket: “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.” This is the testament of Paul Baumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

My r ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Feb 01, 2024 Joanne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-with-friends-read, classics-read

A German Patriot teacher encourages Paul Baumer and his friends to join-up with the German Army in WWI. The young men are not prepared for the horror they will live.

One of the oddest things though that happened to me: during the first few chapters I never registered that I was reading through the eyes of a German soldier. It took me a while to lose the picture of an American.

This is a book I have put off reading for most of my life. In ways I am glad that I did. I know in high school I used The A German Patriot teacher encourages Paul Baumer and his friends to join-up with the German Army in WWI. The young men are not prepared for the horror they will live.

One of the oddest things though that happened to me: during the first few chapters I never registered that I was reading through the eyes of a German soldier. It took me a while to lose the picture of an American.

This is a book I have put off reading for most of my life. In ways I am glad that I did. I know in high school I used The Cliff notes as I could not handle the war scenes. The writing, I knew, was top notch. It was just not something a young hippie wanted to read about.

In this attempt at reading I took it in small pieces. A chapter or so a day and then I would sit and breath and shake my head at the insanity of war. In a section of the book Paul escapes the bombardment on the front by jumping into a trench. He has no idea what side the trench belongs to and ends up alone with a fatally wounded French soldier.

...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 too late. Why do they never tell us, that you poor devils are just like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying, the same agony-Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. 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"

Powerful.

After that encounter Paul returns safely to his unit. He hesitates in telling his friends what happened. Eventually he breaks down and does tell them. One of his friends says one of the wisest things I ever heard. In a nutshell what he expresses is: that the King, the commander, the President-whoever -of the two countries at war take to the arena, choose their weapon and fight to the death-winner takes all. Makes sense to this old hippie. ...more

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Jul 08, 2025 ˜”*°•.˜”*°• Sheri •°*”˜.•°*”˜ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: group-read-cmt, historical-fiction, wwi

Once and again a shot cracks out. Then we hear the cry: "That's found a billet!" "Did you see how he leapt in the air?" Sergeant Oellrich turns round proudly and scores his point. He heads the shooting list for to-day with three unquestionable hits.

This book is unsettling to say the least, but this book is about war. ...more

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Jul 25, 2021 Samantha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ww1, german-literature

Nothing is spared in this depiction of a young German soldier's life on the Western front. As a Mum of three boys, two who are near the same age as Paul, I was often moved to tears. Anger and injustice rings loudly throughout the narrative in sync with Paul's realisation of the injustice of being sold an unrealistic adventure of life as a German soldier by his school masters. However the book tells more than just the destruction and violence of trench warfare, but also investigates the role of c ...more

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Jan 20, 2015 Kris (My Novelesque Life) rated it it was amazing

4.5 STARS

"This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I. These young men become enthusiastic soldiers, but their world of duty, culture, and progress breaks into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the hatred that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another... if only he can come out of the war ...more

1 like · Like · see review