All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque - 1929
Introduction
Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, published in 1929 (originally printed in German under the title Im Westen Nichts Neues) remains one of the most influential and widely read of all war novels. No other war novel and few novels of any genre have had the impact and popularity enjoyed by All Quiet on the Western Front. Told through the first-person account of a young infantry soldier, Paul Bäumer, the novel places the reader on the front lines and inside the rat-infested trenches of the Franco-German Western Front during World War I. Through the vivid accounts of events narrated by Paul, the reader smells all, tastes all, and sees all. Remarque serves the reader all of the horror, drudgery, pain, and terror that a soldier feels on the front, though the reader also feels a part of the tender sense of camaraderie and natural beauty that Paul transmits through his poetic language.
Above all, All Quiet on the Western Front is noteworthy because of its realism and authenticity. Part of the reason that the novel has such power is because Remarque himself was drafted into the German army in 1916 and he transformed his war experience into this largely autobiographical novel.
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