Why this book: I was in a zoom meeting with my friend Luke on Veterans (Armistice) Day, and he mentioned that his daughter was assigned All Quiet on the Western Front in school and he planned to read it with her. That inspired me to read it again.  I had read it 40 plus years ago and somehow, it didn’t impress me. Since then, I’ve read and studied a lot more about WW1, and lived a life in the business of war,  and decided to read it again.  Really glad I did.

Summary in 4 Sentences:Young Paul Bäumer is in his final year in High School in Germany when his school master marches him and many of his classmates down to the recruiter’s office to enlist in the Kaiser’s army to fight on behalf of his country in WW1.  The story takes Paul and his mates through several years of trench warfare as the war progressed, giving us the soldier’s perspective on life in the trenches, life in their platoon, their shenanigans when they are in the rear,  the death, dying and suffering they experience, and their struggles to survive when they are on the front.  In the chaos and horror of war, the soldiers feel no sense of connection to why they are fighting and dying. no sense of glory or patriotic fervor, or sense of serving and suffering for a greater cause.  The book provides an unadulterated first-person account of a broad spectrum of the typical experiences of a young soldier in WW1, or almost any war, without being air-brushed by patriotic speeches, heroics, and flag waving. 

My impressions:  Very powerful.  Apart from the final paragraph, All Quiet on the Western Front is written entirely in the first person, in the voice of Paul Bäumer a young man who is18 years old at the beginning of the novel, 20 yrs old at the end.   Beautifully written  and engaging.  Bãumer is a very sensible, disciplined, thoughtful young man who gets caught up in a war he doesn’t fully understand, but to which he was called to serve as his duty to his country. He shares his experiences, his impressions, and his attempts to understand the meaning of what he is experiencing, and his place in the world he finds himself in.  The translation of this book is important – see the last paragraph of this review for my comments on the translation. 

Though our narrator is a German youth from a century ago, and warfare has certainly changed since then, it is easy to identify with Paul Bäumer, to like him and empathize with his struggles to adapt and survive – physically and emotionally – as a lowly soldier in the trenches of World War 1.  

Bãumer and a number of his classmates in high school go through bootcamp together, which is more brutal and autocratic than what we today are used to, but that was not just Germany – the US was that way too, a hundred years ago.  Then they are sent to the front and have their first experiences of battle, of artillery barrages, of the alternately miserable, boring, and terrifying life in the trenches, and of losing friends.

Over time, Baumer and his classmates become experienced in the ways of the war and they learn tricks to somewhat reduce the misery and risk, and improve their chances for survival. He shares some of the painful futility of trying to teach new recruits how to survive, and eventually he becomes numb to watching the newbies arrive on the front, make new-guy mistakes, and die like flies.  “to every one old soldier, between five and ten of the recruits are killed. “p91 He shares how he and his mates deal with the misery of being stuck in the trenches, the poor and inadequate food, how they scrounge for better food and clothing while just trying to survive until they get a reprieve to go spend some time in the rear. 

And he shares some of the antics they pull in the rear when they are given a break from the trenches.  Even in the rear, there is a constant adaptation, until they are then sent back to the front and the trenches. They make connections with supply sergeants who have access to resources to make life a little bit easier, they loot abandoned villages, and otherwise find ways to relax and forget about the war.  Over time he and his mates figure things out, and enjoy their reprieve.   At one point he and a couple of his buddies connect with some French girls in a village, but he has become so jaded by the stress and horrors of the battlefield, he struggles to find a connection.  He compares the more personal connection he is trying to find with the French girl, to the impersonal and transactional connections he and his mates have with the whores in the brothels that are made available to men in the rear, noting that the war has blunted his ability to connect with people in the world outside of the battlefield. 

A particularly poignant piece was his description of going home on leave, visiting his parents, friends and family, and finding it very awkward.  He thinks to himself, “You’re home, you’re home.  But there is an awkwardness that will not leave me.” He cannot tolerate the patriotic bravado of those in the bars telling him to go give ’em hell and win the war for the Kaiser and Germany.  Particularly moving is his visit to the mother of one of his classmates who has died, as well as his efforts to connect to his own mother who is dying of cancer .  As hard as he tries, he feels distant and unconnected to the life he had with her in his family before.  He thinks to himself, “Oh Mother, Mother! Why can’t we get up and go away from here, back through the years, until all this misery has vanished from us, back to when it was just you and me, Mother?”  Eventually he sees that being in the war causes his mother more suffering, which he deeply regrets, and concludes, “I should never have come home on leave.” 

On the front, his life is defined and circumscribed by his mates and their efforts to support each other and survive.  He is amazed at how the horror and misery of combat has brought them together.  “We don’t talk much but we have a greater and more gentle consideration for each other than I should think even lovers do.  Before the war we wouldn’t have had a single thought in common – but here we are, sitting with a goose roasting in front of us,  aware of our existence and so close to each other that we can’t even talk about it.” 66   

They see so much death, and over time, one-by-one, he loses his closest friends and he almost becomes used to that.  He talks about the arbitrariness of death – who lives and who dies on the front. “It is this awareness of chance that makes us so indifferent….Every soldier owes the fact that he is still alive to a thousand lucky chances and nothing else.  And every soldier believes in and trusts to chance.” 70

Interspersed with stories of combat and life on the front are his ruminations about his alienation from the life he’d grown up with – life at home and in a normal community – and what that alienation is doing to him and his mates. “The war has ruined us for everything.  We’re no longer young men. We’ve lost any desire to conquer the world. We are refugees. 61  “We are dead men with no feelings, who are able by some trick, some dangerous magic, to keep on running and keep on killing.” 80

He notes that most of what he’d learned prior to coming in the army was of little use to him.  Life on the front is very practical and immediate.  Thinking about his time in school, he notes: “We don’t remember much about all that stuff any more.  It was no use to us anyway. Nobody taught us at school how to light a cigarette in a rain storm, or how it is still possible to make a fire even with soaking wet wood, or that the best place to stick a bayonet is in the belly, because it can’t get jammed in there the way it can in the ribs.” p60 .

Bäumer does have moments of hope, as he thinks of happier times in the past, of the peacefulness of being in nature, letting his thoughts wander to “…all the things to come, the thousand faces of the future, the music of dreams and books, the rustling and the idea of women. All this cannot have collapsed in the shelling, the despair and the army brothels.” 200

It is indeed a dark novel and it’s message is that war is not glorious, it turns men into animals and squeezes the civilizing influences of home, family, and community out of them.   Remarque’s message runs counter to the jingoism we hear from political and even military leaders.  I’m not surprised that Hitler banned it in Germany.  But though his story is dark, Remarque, through Bäumer, tells his story in a very personal and fully engaging way.   My own view – this book is too powerful, too graphic and mature in its themes for high school kids or even most young adults. I didn’t appreciate it when I first read it, even in my early 20s.  As a (late) middle aged adult, after spending a career in the military, I agree with the cover line –  it is one of the great books on men at war.  I put it in league with the best novels on war I’ve read: The Forgotten Soldier (WW2), The Naked and the Dead (WW2) and Matterhorn (Vietnam).

ON THE TRANSLATION
I began reading the Wheen translation in the Ballantine Books edition of All Quiet on the Western Front, and was unimpressed, with both the translation and the copy style of the book.  So I found the Vintage books edition, translated by Brian Murdoch. I immediately liked it better and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, though the subject is dark.  The translation can make a big difference, if you are planning to read this book. Some have criticized the Murdoch translation as not being sufficiently literal, and the translation is for a British audience (using British slang in translation of German slang,) but for readability and style, and for capturing the personality of the narrator and the sense of the environment, I found it much more engaging than the Wheen translation. For more on the translation of All Quiet… this website provides additional background.