April 2023 BOTM - All Quiet on the Western Front

[Ian]

Hi All,

This is the discussion thread for the April 2023 Book of the Month: All Quiet on the Western Front.

I have a digital copy, so it is hard to work out a reading schedule by pages, so I will just split the 12 chapters up into 4 weeks:
Week 1 April 1 - 9 Chapters 1-3
Week 2 April 10 -16 Chapters 4-6
Week 3 April 17 - 23 Chapters 7-9
Week 4 April 24 - 30 Chapters 10-12

Let me know if you think the schedule is really unbalanced (i.e. one week has 50% of the pages)

I can't put the book down, so I will probably go ahead of the schedule.

[Mark]

This is one novel I have in my collection, the job is now finding my copy. 😳

[Jazzy]

I read this not too long ago. I loved the perspective of the young German soldiers.

[LauraP]

Hi, everyone. I don't post often, but reading this book. Is it a millitary-type book?

[Jazzy]

LauraP I think it's more of a human book. The young men are caught in the middle of the war, and it's not like they imagined.

[Ian]

Hi All,

How is everyone doing with this book? I have been reading ahead and am about 2/3 of the way through.

I just finished East Of Eden a few weeks back and the later chapters take place during World War 1; in one part, Steinbeck describes the german army as invincible. It is interesting from the german perspective in All Quiet on the Western Front, that the war seems hopeless for the soldiers as they are stalled in trench warfare.

[Kristin]

I'm late to the party, but I just checked this book out at the library. I read this book in high school and I remember that it was really eye opening to me. I'm excited to revisit it.

[Ian]

Great to have you in the party, Kristin!

I went ahead and finished this a few nights ago, but I won't post any spoilers early.

It is a fairly quick read, so there is lots of time to join in, in case anyone else was thinking about reading this BOTM.

[Angie]

I started this late in the month and only caught up with the schedule today.
I find it difficult to put my thoughts on the book into words... I feel very much drawn into the story and its characters, yet at the same time I have the urge to take a break from the novel once in a while, because the events it depicts are so utterly sad and tragic, that I find them hard to bear.
What makes the story particularly haunting for me is the fact, that it is so easy to identify with Paul, the protagonist and his friends. They entered this war as naive schoolboys and then find themselves in the middle of an atrocious and pointless war.

[LauraP]

Sorry, not interested in reading a military'type book. I'll check in later to read another time.

[La Tonya]

I finished this book today. I am still in awe of Paul and all the other soliders. The vast descriptions of battles and the wounded are authenic. The unknown hardships of those in the very crust of the war. A masterpiece of a read.

Follow link to read my review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jazzy]

LauraP wrote: "Sorry, not interested in reading a military'type book. I'll check in later to read another time."

it wasn't a military book. What I got from it was how the German boys were duped into the glory of war, the same as with every other country.

[Danny]

Ian wrote: "Great to have you in the party, Kristin!

I went ahead and finished this a few nights ago, but I won't post any spoilers early.

It is a fairly quick read, so there is lots of time to join in, in c..."

I finished this a couple of hours ago. Although I am late to the party, I felt compelled to write a few words. Many of the nested stories within this book could be novels themselves. The sequences where Paul goes on leave and feels stuck between his military and civilian persona seemed uncomfortably relevant, as well as psychologically scarring. In fact, I thought it led to the demise of most of its characters. In essence, a mind adapted to war attacks itself in civilian life. This book is haunting because it shows the disintegration of home as a physical and social construct.

[Larry]

Wow!! Very moving. I think everyone who glorifies war and has no firsthand experience should read this. Its style reminded me of "One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich'. Another firsthand experience of war from a POW viewpoint.
War histories talk about the atrocities of war but usually from a far-off view. We need stories like these to bring the horrors of war closer to the individual people affected by it.