‘I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair…’
Back at the start of my teaching career, I went through a spell of working my way through the canon of classic literature. However, now that I’m eight years deep, turning to the classics can sometimes feel like a busman’s holiday. All Quiet on the Western Front hits that sweet spot of being a prestigious novel but also blissfully short and easy to read. I adored it…
Written around a decade after the end of WWI by German war veteran Erich Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front takes the quiet despair of the famous war poets and runs with it to create one of the great anti-war novels. Indeed, in that respect, Remarque’s beloved classic acts as a natural precursor to Slaughterhouse-Five and Catch-22.
Written from the perspective of a young German soldier and his group of school friends, All Quiet.. never shies away from the truism that war is hell (and in the case of WWI specifically, it was also largely futile). What makes Paul Baumer’s story so essential is the everyday details, the sublime mundanity of life on the frontline. And while there are moments of horror here, true horror, crucially, there is also levity. It is a balancing act that is difficult to pull off and it’s a testament to Remarque’s bruisingly simple but incredibly effective prose that the book is still a success. And it remains a success almost 100 years later. This novel has not aged a day. At 200 pages or so it should be required reading for everyone.
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel that will remain evergreen while ever there is conflict and war. A masterpiece.