“All Quiet on the Western Front” Book Review

By Mary Eby

Bold honesty, heartbreaking deaths, and gruesome darkness. These keys ideas may collectively look like they tell a story that some would not want to read due to the depressing tone when in actuality they describe the wonderful and honest tales of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front.

All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of a fictional German WWI soldier named Paul Bäumer. Freshly out of secondary school Paul and many of his other classmates are persuaded by their teacher to enlist in the war. The novel follows Paul, in a first person narration, on his experience through the war and battling the French on the front lines. The story presents many depressing and unfortunately truthful sceneries of World War One. 

Before the novel begins, Remarque states that his book “is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it…” He continues to say that the story “…will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.” This statement of Remarque’s was true straight down to the bone. His story told of exactly what he said it would, of the destruction of innocent young men, physically and mentally.

Throughout the story, the reader is presented with the deep, and almost philosophical, thoughts of Paul. He often stops to ponder on different aspects of war and why it is worth it. He looks upon all of the death and destruction happening around him and asks himself, why? Remarque captures the true essence of war rather than the surface idea of the pride and honor that comes with it. He brings awareness to what soldiers went through and he does it in a manner that people can fathom. He does this mostly by using comparisons to things that average people can understand and placing it next to some unfathomable aspect of war.

Remarque’s book, All Quiet on the Westrn Front, is a true masterpiece of its time and that is why it has stayed so popular for so long. Many war stories either dramatize the truth to make things more intriguing or they keep key points out in an attempt to not make it as depressing and gruesome as it truly is. But, this book did no sugarcoating and it instead laid out the true and prevalent information. However, Remarque does use blips of comic relief throughout the book in order to keep the book from being too dark and being unbearable.

Overall, All Quiet on the Western Front is an amazing piece of literature. It captures the main idea of what literature exists for, to tell stories of the past and keep them alive. It is a story that I believe every person should read at some point in their life. It is also a story that will exist in society for years and years to come.