Showing results for title "All Quiet on the Western Front", by author "Erich Maria Remarque" in Classics

The story is told by a young 'unknown soldier' in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war: under fire, on patrol, waiting in the trenches, at home on leave, and in hospitals and dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in the mind, there is no sense of adventure here, only the feeling of youth betrayed and a deceptively simple indictment of war—of any war—told for a whole generation of victims.

This gripping tale follows Paul and his mates as they navigate the horror, boredom, and stupidity of the First World War. We see the pain of one comrade, who loses a leg, while his friends covet the pair of boots he can no longer wear. We follow Paul’s company as it is whittled down in combat from 150 men to 32. Paul, wounded, goes home on leave, but he feels alienated from his family, who do not understand what he has gone through and to whom he cannot explain it.

These four novels remain classics 100 years after they were published. They not only shaped the literature of the 20th century, but they altered our views of life and reality—and what can and cannot be written about. These novels—all written a century ago—remain gripping and unforgettable. These audio versions bring their powerful narratives vividly to life for the modern listener.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” is one of the most powerful anti-war novels ever written—a timeless classic that strips away the myths of glory and honor to reveal the brutal, dehumanizing truth of warfare. Told through the eyes of Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier on the front lines of World War I, this harrowing narrative plunges listeners into the mud-soaked trenches, the constant threat of death, and the emotional numbness born of unspeakable loss.

History offers few records of war as vivid, haunting, and evocative as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. As enthralling to twenty-first century audiences as it was to those who first encountered the book in 1928, Remarque’s landmark tells the story of a young German volunteer who, with his comrades, moves from idealism to fatalism witnessing the horrors of mass killing and the intimate deaths of friends or the disfiguring survival of young men languishing in field hospitals.

A harrowing tale of camaraderie, loss, and the dehumanizing brutality of war, All Quiet on the Western Front follows young German soldier Paul Bäumer as he endures the horrors of World War I. Erich Maria Remarque's timeless masterpiece exposes the devastating impact of conflict on the human soul.

These iconic works explore the depths of human suffering, identity, and transformation, showcasing some of the most profound voices of the 20th century. From the haunting reflections on war in All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms to the poetic expression of inner conflict in the works of Owen, Rosenberg, and Brooke, this collection provides a window into the world of writers who grappled with the aftermath of trauma and the search for meaning.

In 1914 Paul Bumer and his classmates are marched to the local recruiting office by a sentimentally patriotic form-master. On a calm October day in 1918, only a few weeks before the Armistice, Paul will be the last of them to be killed.Here, he tells their story. A few years after publication, the Nazis would denounce and publicly burn Remarque's novel for insulting the heroic German army - in other words, for 'telling it like it was' for the common soldier on the front line where any notions of glory and national destiny were soon blasted away by the dehumanizing horror of modern warfare.

"There is a whistling sound behind us. Shells pass overhead and explode in a sheet of flame a hundred meters away." When Paul Büumer and his classmates join the army, nothing has prepared them for the death and destruction they witness. Machine guns, huge artillery shells, and poison gas create a nightmare world for these young men and their older comrades. For months and years, attack is followed by counterattack.

Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a haunting and unflinching portrayal of the harrowing realities of war. Through the eyes of Paul Bäumer, a young German soldier on the front lines of World War I, Remarque captures the devastating physical and psychological toll of combat on individuals and their humanity.

"This 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. It will simply try to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." Prologue to All Quiet on the Western Front.