All Quiet on the Western Front in Classics Without All the Class

Sep 14, 2016 Staciel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: rated-5-stars, classic-lit, my-book-of-the-year

Thank you, Donald Trump, for getting me to read this book.

Trump has said of reading, "I read passages, I read areas, chapters, I don’t have the time,” (so people don't think that I'd make such a thing up, it can be found here: https://newrepublic.com/minutes/13356...)

ANYWAY... in an attempt to get a deeper look at the GOP Presidental Candidate, I searched around looking for his favorite book, and this is apparently it..

If you are reading this, Donald, please feel free to send me a note as I'd lo Thank you, Donald Trump, for getting me to read this book.

Trump has said of reading, "I read passages, I read areas, chapters, I don’t have the time,” (so people don't think that I'd make such a thing up, it can be found here: https://newrepublic.com/minutes/13356...)

ANYWAY... in an attempt to get a deeper look at the GOP Presidental Candidate, I searched around looking for his favorite book, and this is apparently it..

If you are reading this, Donald, please feel free to send me a note as I'd love to chat about how this book impacted you, and which passages you found profound.. I was struck by how anti-war this book felt.. how senseless it seemed to be through the eyes of main character Paul Baumer, and my favorite quotes include:

“But now, 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 it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”

"A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes its daily round. And this is only one hospital, a single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.”

And, the last one that I will share:

“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 again and often forever.”

How about you? This could be a great discussion.

UPDATE: My Book of the Year 2016 ...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Kristi Krumnow rated it really liked it

Shelves: 20th-century, classic-lit, starting-anew, audiobook, the-great-war, wwi

The daily boredom, the fighting of the unknown, the periodic returns to family life, the emotional contrast in being paraded around as a hero whilst feeling gloom at having watched the death of friends suggests a terror unknown by many. The final ruminations about the future generations of those who experienced war first hand is prophetic. It is no wonder this book was banned by the Nazis. Thus, we must read it.

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