The world has gained a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. Of that there can be no longer any question. On the two themes which he has thus far chosen, Remarque has surpassed all his contemporaries. "All Quiet on the Western Front" justly won its place as the best picture of the common soldier in the war to be done in any language; now, in "The Road Back," Remarque has given the most powerful handling it has had to the story of that soldier in the post-war years. "The Road Back" is a finer book than "All Quiet," a book that drops like a plummet into the hearts of men….
It is a finer book than "All Quiet," first of all because it is a book with a wider vision, with a fuller range of life for its scope. And it is better written. It reveals Remarque as a craftsman of unquestionably first rank, a man who can bend language to his will. This is prose … which can be piercingly sweet or vibrantly dramatic, as the theme demands. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, Remarque's touch is sensitive, firm and sure.
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