Who Doesn't Love a Classic? discussion

All Quiet On the Western Front – Erich Marie Remarque
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 reactions;
Many have called this the “greatest war novel of all time.” I’m not certain I agree with that superlative, but it IS a powerful, emotional, gripping, disturbing, enthralling, and honest exploration of war and its effects on the young who become the pawns of their leaders.

Remarque was himself a soldier in World War I, so he was intimately acquainted with both the romantic adventure that lures many a young person to enlist and the despair and terror of the horrors witnessed on the battlefield.

Frank Muller’s performance on the audio book is perfect. He is in turns eager, excited, confused, terrified, gentle, compassionate, ruthless, defeated, or hopeful.


My full review HERE