All Quiet on the Western Front

Finished All Quiet on the Western Front today. Really an excellent book. Although, if you had asked me two days ago about its quality, I would have told you it was boring.

But I think that was the point of the book, in a way.

To give a brief synopsis, it's the tail of a German soldier during World War I. The story accounts his life in the trenches, the friendships he makes, and the hardships he faces.

It starts off extremely boring: with stories of men joking around in the front lines, with men worrying about food, with men describing what they'll do when they get home. And I suppose that is what life IS like on the front lines.

But finally, in the last one hundred pages, the book turns to a much more non-everyday slant. To a discussion of war itself. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the book:

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. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring. And all men of my age, here and over there, throughout the whole world see these things; all my generation is experiencing these things with me. What would our fathers do if we suddenly stood up and came before them and proffered our account? What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over? Through the years our business has been killing; it is our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards? And what shall come out of us?

That is one of THE most haunting and humane accounts of war I've ever read.

And that's the true story of All Quiet on the Western Front.

If you find the time or the interest and have not yet read it, I highly suggest reading A.Q.W.F.