No change on the Western Front. “All Quiet on the Western Front,” an artistic analysis of Remarque’s novel

In the preface of the novel he writes: “This book is not an accusation or a confession. This is just an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped from the shells.” The title of the work is taken from German reports on the progress of military operations during the First World War, that is, on the Western Front.

About the book and author

In his book, Remarque describes a man at war. He reveals to us this important and difficult topic, which has been touched upon many times in classical literature. The writer brought his tragic experience of the “lost generation” and offered to look at the war through the eyes of a soldier.

The book brought the author worldwide fame. She opened the initial stage of the long-term success of Remarque's novels. Reading a writer’s works is like turning over pages from the history of the twentieth century. His trench truth has stood the test of time and withstood two wars; his thoughts are still a lesson for future generations of readers.

The plot of "All Quiet on the Western Front"

The main characters of the novel are young guys who just yesterday were sitting at school desks. They, like Remarque himself, went to war as volunteers. The boys fell for the bait of school propaganda, but upon arrival at the front everything fell into place, and the war seemed more like an opportunity to serve the homeland, and was the most ordinary massacre, where there is no place for humanity and heroism. The main task is not so much to live and fight, but to escape from a bullet, to survive in any situation.

Remarque does not try to justify all the horrors of war. He only paints us the real life of soldiers. Even the smallest details like pain, death, blood, dirt do not escape us. Before us is war through the eyes of a simple person, for whom all ideals collapse in the face of death.

Why should you read All Quiet on the Western Front?

Let us immediately note that this is not the Remarque that you may be familiar with from books such as, and. First of all, this is a war novel, which describes the tragedy of war. It lacks the simplicity and grandeur characteristic of Remarque's work.

Remarque's attitude towards war is a little wiser and deeper than that of many party theorists: for him, war is horror, disgust, fear. However, he also recognizes its fatal nature, that it will forever remain in the history of mankind, since it managed to take root in past centuries.

Main themes:

partnership;
the meaninglessness of war;
destructive power of ideology.

Start online and you will understand how people who lived at that time felt. In those terrible years, the war not only divided peoples, it severed the internal connection between parents and their children. While the former made speeches and wrote articles about heroism, the latter went through the pangs of fear and died from wounds.

Rated the book

Today we would wander around our native places like visiting tourists. A curse hangs over us - the cult of facts. We distinguish between things like traders and understand necessity like butchers. We stopped being careless, we became terribly indifferent. Let us assume that we remain alive; but will we live?
We are helpless, like abandoned children, and experienced, like old people, we have become callous, and pitiful, and superficial - it seems to me that we will never be reborn.

I think that this quote can say everything that I experienced... All the misfortune of the lost generation of the war. And it doesn’t matter what kind of war it is, the important thing is that after it you lose yourself in the world.
A very powerful piece. This is the first time I've read about a war that is told from the perspective of a German soldier. A soldier who was yesterday's schoolboy, who loved books and life. Who was not broken by difficulties - he did not become a coward and a traitor, he fought honestly, difficulties did not break him, he just got lost in this war.. One of his friends said correctly - let the generals go one on one, and from the outcome of this fight they would determine would be the winner.
How many destinies... How many people. How scary it is.

We see people who are still alive, although they have no head; we see soldiers running although both their feet have been cut off; they hobble on their stumps with bone fragments sticking out to the nearest crater; one corporal crawls two kilometers on his hands, dragging his broken legs behind him; another goes to the dressing station, pressing the spreading intestines to his stomach with his hands; we see people without lips, without a lower jaw, without a face; we pick up a soldier who, for two hours, pressed his teeth against an artery in his arm so as not to bleed; The sun rises, night comes, shells whistle, life is over.

How attached I became to Remarque’s heroes! How they did not lose heart during the war, maintained a sense of humor, fought hunger and supported each other. How they wanted to live.. Yesterday’s boys who had to grow up so quickly. Who had to see death, who had to kill. Of course, it is difficult for them to adapt to the other life from which they came straight into war.
And how Remarque vividly describes this through the mouth of the main character. And you begin to understand that for some people human life is worth nothing... But Paul, sitting in a trench with a killed French soldier, thought about all this. I thought that they were defending their fatherland, but the French were also defending their fatherland. Someone is waiting for everyone. They have a place to return to. But will they be able to live later?
The war constantly echoes in the souls of those who went through it. No matter what kind of war it is, it always cripples destinies. And those who survived - the winners and the vanquished - suffer, and the relatives and friends of those who did not return from the war suffer. And for a long time they dream, shuddering at every rustle.
This is a very difficult piece. And we should collect all these books about wars in different times, in different countries and give them to read to all those who unleash this bloodshed. Is something trembling in your chest? Will your heart hurt?
Don't know..

Rated the book

We are no longer young people. We are no longer going to take life by battle. We are fugitives. We are running from ourselves. From your life. We were eighteen years old, and we were just beginning to love the world and life; we had to shoot at them. The first shell that exploded hit our heart. We are cut off from rational activity, from human aspirations, from progress. We don't believe in them anymore. We believe in war.

I usually give a book a perfect rating if it's a compelling read or simply blows my mind. Neither of these happened here. The novel was read normally, nothing more, everything was calm and without any special emotions, I didn’t learn anything new. But when the last pages passed, I felt somehow strange. And after that the hand was no longer raised to give a four. Because damn, this is an insanely powerful book.

World War I. These guys were students just yesterday. They found themselves thrown out of life straight into the trenches. Yesterday's boys, who turned into old men under machine-gun fire, left the care of their parents, but did not have time to fall in love, did not have time to choose a path in life. Young Paul loses his friends one by one, death becomes part of everyday life, but is it so scary? Much more terrible is the question of what to do when peace comes (if it comes!). Will any of them be able to live on? Or is it better that it all ends here on the battlefield?

The best books about war are those written in this language. Dry, ordinary. The hero-storyteller is not trying to squeeze a tear out of you, scare you, or make you feel sorry for him. He simply talks about his life. And it is behind this calm story that the true horror of war is shown, when things terrible in their cruelty turn into an ordinary weekday.

But what distinguishes this novel from other similar works is not the actual description of military operations and inevitable tragedies, but the frightening psychological atmosphere. The young soldiers are still alive, but at heart they are actually dead. Yesterday’s children, they don’t understand what to do with life, if, of course, they stay alive, they don’t understand why they are fighting. They defend their fatherland, but their French enemies also defend theirs. Who needs this war? What's the point?
But the main question is: do these guys have a future? Alas, there is no future, and the past has dissolved, sunk into oblivion and seems so funny, unreal and alien...

Shells, clouds of gases and tank divisions - injury, suffocation, death.
Dysentery, flu, typhus - pain, fever, death.
Trenches, infirmary, mass grave - there are no other possibilities.

A very, very powerful thing. And when you read, you don’t feel anything like that, the whole enormity of this small book grows gradually behind the pages, but to such an extent that in the end it looms menacingly over your consciousness.

Rated the book

I really respect books about war and, despite all their severity, I definitely read one or two a year. Many people wonder why they should torture themselves and read about blood, guts and severed limbs, of which there is a lot in this work. I agree that such descriptions do not add happiness, but I would not dwell on them either; in war this is not the main thing and this is not the worst thing. It is much more terrible to lose your human appearance, dignity, to break under pressure and torture, to betray your loved ones for the sake of a piece of bread or an extra minute of life. This is what you need to be afraid of. Any military action a priori presupposes a “meat grinder,” the description of which is intended to prove that war is contrary to human nature. War is like a Russian revolt - “senseless and merciless.” And it doesn’t matter at all who started it and why. Despite the fact that the heroes of Remarque’s book are German soldiers (and as you remember, it was Germany that started both world wars), this makes them no less sorry.

Not only people suffer from war... well-known words come to mind: it seems that the earth itself is groaning, drenched in blood. For example, I still get chills when I remember the episode with the wounded horses.

The screams continue. These are not people, people cannot scream so terribly.
Kat says:
Wounded horses.
I've never heard horses scream before, and I can't believe it. It is the long-suffering world itself that groans; in these groans one can hear all the torments of living flesh, burning, terrifying pain. We turned pale. Detering stands up to his full height:
Monsters, flayers! Yes, shoot them!
Detering is a peasant and knows a lot about horses. He's excited. And the shooting, as if on purpose, almost completely died down. This makes their screams heard even more clearly. We no longer understand where they come from in this suddenly quiet, silvery world; invisible, ghostly, they are everywhere, somewhere between heaven and earth, they are becoming more and more piercing, it seems there will be no end to this - Detering is already beside himself with rage and shouts loudly:
Shoot them, shoot them, damn you!

This moment penetrates to the depths of your soul, like an icy January wind, you begin to appreciate life more deeply. The main thing that I learned from this book by Remarque is that when the news once again talks about the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere, this is not an empty ringing, behind these familiar and seemingly tedious reports hide the eyes of real people who All these horrors are seen every day, who, like you and me, cannot simply isolate themselves from what is happening - not open a book or turn on the TV. They cannot escape from blood and horror, for them this is not fiction or an exaggeration of the author, this is their life, which the big and important men who gave the order to drop the bombs decided for them.

My verdict: be sure to read and always remember that war is not a dry news report about the number of killed and wounded somewhere in the Middle East, where they are constantly at war, this can happen to anyone and it is, indeed, very scary.

Published in 1929. According to the author, he did not want to confess or blame anyone, but wanted to talk about the generation destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims. He took the title of the book from military reports on the situation at the front.

The book tells about the horrors of war that Paul Bäumer and his comrades experienced and saw. Remarque used the metaphor “lost generation” in relation to such people, since even after the end of hostilities, most soldiers could not join civilian life due to mental trauma.

What is the novel All Quiet on the Western Front about?

A book about young volunteer soldiers who were schoolchildren just yesterday . The main character Paul Bäumer, together with his classmates Albert Kropp, Müller, Leer and other comrades, are not just fighting side by side, but are trying to escape death.

At school they were taught that war was an excellent opportunity to repay their debt to the Motherland, but on the battlefield they soon realized that they had been cruelly deceived. War is a meat grinder in which there is no place for humanity and heroism u. Everything that the teachers taught them at school turned out to be useless and even harmful.

The law of war is to learn to kill correctly and try to survive at any cost, the rest does not matter. Meanwhile, a gap in consciousness occurred not only between propaganda and what was seen, but also between two generations - parents and children

When their offspring suffered in hospitals from unbearable pain and in trenches from unsanitary conditions, parents admired their heroism, which in fact did not exist . Paul felt especially “lost” and misunderstood after being at home. He immediately realized that it would be difficult for someone like him to restore peace of mind in peaceful conditions.

His parents, although painfully experiencing short-term difficulties, knew about the war from rumors and reports from newspapers. It hit the young fragile soldier souls the hardest . Torn out of their familiar environment and forced to fight for changing values, yesterday’s teenagers were killing their future.

At the front, unlike the patriotic stories, everything was completely different. The recruits lived in fear. In the barracks, where they were constantly drilled and forced to do completely unnecessary things, they gradually became callous and ruthless .

This was the only way to knock everything human out of them and force them to obey. The only thing they needed was companionship. In order to survive and not go crazy, they needed to morally support each other.

Erich Remarque's novel “All Quiet on the Western Front” is about the harsh reality of front-line life without embellishment and pseudo-patriotic hysteria. It makes you think about the meaninglessness of wars and the lost illusions of the “lost generation” .

Why should you read the book?

The product is international. It does not pit one nation against another, but shows that people are all the same and everyone has the same problems. It was hard to fight on both sides of the front.
It is especially useful to read the book to the younger generation, who know firsthand what war is. In fact, this is not heroism, but death and dirt.
Through the eyes of an ordinary soldier, life, bombings, attacks, death are shown. His deep thoughts on all this will touch everyone.
Simple language and the absence of imposing one’s point of view on world events are a distinctive feature of the book. A powerfully emotional work worth reading.

We briefly talked about the problems that the author raises in the work. In order to better understand the meaning of the book, it should be read in its entirety. Read an online book completely free on the online-knigi website

This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is only an attempt to tell about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its victims, even if they escaped from the shells.

Erich Maria Remarque IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUES

Translation from German by Yu.N. Afonkina

Serial design by A.A. Kudryavtseva

Computer design A.V. Vinogradova

Reprinted with permission from The Estate of the Late Paulette Remarque and Mohrbooks AG Literary Agency and Synopsis.

The exclusive rights to publish the book in Russian belong to AST Publishers. Any use of the material in this book, in whole or in part, without the permission of the copyright holder is prohibited.

We are standing nine kilometers from the front line. Yesterday we were replaced; Now our stomachs are full of beans and meat, and we all walk around full and satisfied. Even for dinner, everyone got a full pot; On top of that, we get a double portion of bread and sausage - in a word, we live well. This hasn’t happened to us for a long time: our kitchen god with his crimson, like a tomato, bald head himself offers us more food; he waves the ladle, inviting passers-by, and pours out hefty portions to them. He still won’t empty his “squeaker,” and this drives him into despair. Tjaden and Müller obtained several basins from somewhere and filled them to the brim - in reserve. Tjaden did it out of gluttony, Müller out of caution. Where everything that Tjaden eats goes is a mystery to all of us. He still remains as skinny as a herring.

But the most important thing is that the smoke was also given out in double portions. Each person had ten cigars, twenty cigarettes and two bars of chewing tobacco. Overall, pretty decent. I exchanged Katchinsky’s cigarettes for my tobacco, so now I have forty in total. You can last one day.

But, strictly speaking, we are not entitled to all this at all. The management is not capable of such generosity. We were just lucky.

Two weeks ago we were sent to the front line to relieve another unit. It was quite calm in our area, so by the day of our return the captain received allowances according to the usual distribution and ordered to cook for a company of one hundred and fifty people. But just on the last day, the British suddenly brought up their heavy “meat grinders”, most unpleasant things, and beat them on our trenches for so long that we suffered heavy losses, and only eighty people returned from the front line.

We arrived at the rear at night and immediately stretched out on our bunks to first get a good night's sleep; Katchinsky is right: the war would not be so bad if only one could sleep more. You never get much sleep on the front line, and two weeks drag on for a long time.

When the first of us began to crawl out of the barracks, it was already midday. Half an hour later, we grabbed our pots and gathered at the “squeaker” dear to our hearts, which smelled of something rich and tasty. Of course, the first in line were those who always had the biggest appetite: short Albert Kropp, the brightest head in our company and, probably for this reason, only recently promoted to corporal; Muller the Fifth, who still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams: under hurricane fire, he crams the laws of physics; Leer, who wears a thick beard and has a weakness for girls from brothels for officers: he swears that there is an order in the army obliging these girls to wear silk underwear, and to take a bath before receiving visitors with the rank of captain and above; the fourth is me, Paul Bäumer. All four were nineteen years old, all four went to the front from the same class.

Immediately behind us are our friends: Tjaden, a mechanic, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most gluttonous soldier in the company - for food he sits thin and slender, and after eating, he stands up pot-bellied, like a sucked bug; Haye Westhus, also our age, a peat worker who can freely take a loaf of bread in his hand and ask: “Well, guess what’s in my fist?”; Detering, a peasant who thinks only about his farm and his wife; and, finally, Stanislav Katchinsky, the soul of our squad, a man with character, smart and cunning - he is forty years old, he has a sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders and an extraordinary sense of smell about when the shelling will begin, where you can get food and how It's best to hide from your superiors.

Our section headed the line that formed near the kitchen. We began to get impatient as the unsuspecting cook was still waiting for something.

Finally Katchinsky shouted to him:

- Well, open up your glutton, Heinrich! And so you can see that the beans are cooked!

The cook shook his head sleepily:

- Let everyone gather first.

Tjaden grinned:

- And we are all here!

The cook still didn't notice anything:

- Hold your pocket wider! Where are the others?

- They are not on your payroll today! Some are in the infirmary, and some are in the ground!

Upon learning of what had happened, the kitchen god was struck down. He was even shaken:

- And I cooked for a hundred and fifty people!

Kropp poked him in the side with his fist.

“That means we’ll eat our fill at least once.” Come on, start the distribution!

At that moment, a sudden thought struck Tjaden. His face, sharp as a mouse, lit up, his eyes squinted slyly, his cheekbones began to play, and he came closer:

- Heinrich, my friend, so you got bread for a hundred and fifty people?

The dumbfounded cook nodded absently.

Tjaden grabbed him by the chest:

- And sausage too?

The cook nodded again with his head as purple as a tomato. Tjaden's jaw dropped:

- And tobacco?

- Well, yes, that's it.

Tjaden turned to us, his face beaming:

- Damn it, that's lucky! After all, now everything will go to us! It will be - just wait! – that’s right, exactly two servings per nose!

But then the Tomato came to life again and said:

- It won’t work that way.

Now we, too, shook off our sleep and squeezed closer.

- Hey, carrot, why won’t it work? – asked Katchinsky.

- Yes, because eighty is not one hundred and fifty!

“But we’ll show you how to do it,” Muller grumbled.

“You’ll get the soup, so be it, but I’ll give you bread and sausage only for eighty,” Tomato continued to persist.

Katchinsky lost his temper:

“I wish I could send you to the front line just once!” You received food not for eighty people, but for the second company, that’s it. And you will give them away! The second company is us.

We took Pomodoro into circulation. Everyone disliked him: more than once, through his fault, lunch or dinner ended up in our trenches cold, very late, since even with the most insignificant fire he did not dare to move closer with his cauldron and our food bearers had to crawl much further than their brothers from other mouths. Here is Bulke from the first company, he was much better. Even though he was fat as a hamster, if necessary, he dragged his kitchen almost to the very front.

We were in a very belligerent mood, and, probably, things would have come to a fight if the company commander had not appeared at the scene. Having learned what we were arguing about, he only said:

- Yes, yesterday we had big losses...

Then he looked into the cauldron:

– And the beans seem to be quite good.

The tomato nodded:

- With lard and beef.

The lieutenant looked at us. He understood what we were thinking. In general, he understood a lot - after all, he himself came from our midst: he came to the company as a non-commissioned officer. He lifted the lid of the cauldron again and sniffed. As he left, he said:

- Bring me a plate too. And distribute portions for everyone. Why should good things disappear?

This book is neither an accusation nor a confession. This is only an attempt to talk about the generation that was destroyed by the war, about those who became its

A victim, even if he escaped the shells.

This hasn’t happened to us in a long time: our kitchen god with his crimson, like a tomato, bald head himself offers us more food; he waves a ladle,

He calls out to those passing by and gives them hefty portions. He still won’t empty his “squeaker,” and this drives him into despair. Tjaden and Müller

We got hold of several basins from somewhere and filled them to the brim - in reserve.
Tjaden did it out of gluttony, Müller out of caution. Where everything that Tjaden eats goes is a mystery to all of us. He doesn't care

Remains as skinny as a herring.
But the most important thing is that the smoke was also given out in double portions. Each person has ten cigars, twenty cigarettes and two bars of chewing gum.

Tobacco. Overall, pretty decent. I exchanged Katchinsky’s cigarettes for my tobacco, so now I have forty in total. To last one day

Can.
But, strictly speaking, we are not entitled to all this at all. The management is not capable of such generosity. We were just lucky.
Two weeks ago we were sent to the front line to relieve another unit. It was quite calm in our area, so by the day of our return

The captain received allowances according to the usual distribution and ordered to cook for a company of one hundred and fifty people. But just on the last day

The British suddenly threw up their heavy “meat grinders”, very unpleasant things, and beat them on our trenches for so long that we suffered heavy

There were casualties, and only eighty people returned from the front line.
We arrived at the rear at night and immediately stretched out on our bunks to first get a good night's sleep; Katchinsky is right: it wouldn’t be like this in war

It's bad, if only I could sleep more. You never get much sleep on the front line, and two weeks drag on for a long time.
When the first of us began to crawl out of the barracks, it was already midday. Half an hour later we grabbed our bowlers and gathered at our dear

The heart of the “squeaker”, which smelled of something rich and tasty. Of course, those with the biggest appetites were first in line:

Short Albert Kropp, the brightest head in our company and, probably, that’s why he was only recently promoted to corporal; Muller the Fifth, who before

He still carries textbooks with him and dreams of passing preferential exams; under hurricane fire he crams the laws of physics; Leer who wears a broad

He has a beard and has a weakness for girls from brothels for officers; he swears that there is an army order obliging these girls to wear silk

Linen, and before receiving visitors with the rank of captain and above - take a bath; the fourth is me, Paul Bäumer. All four are nineteen years old, all

Four went to the front from the same class.
Immediately behind us are our friends: Tjaden, a mechanic, a frail young man of the same age as us, the most gluttonous soldier in the company - he sits down to eat

Thin and slender, and after eating, he stands up pot-bellied, like a sucking bug; Haye Westhus, also our age, is a peat worker who can freely

Take a loaf of bread in your hand and ask: Well, guess what’s in my fist? "; Detering, a peasant who thinks only about his farm

And about his wife; and, finally, Stanislav Katchinsky, the soul of our department, a man of character, smart and cunning - he is forty years old, he has

A sallow face, blue eyes, sloping shoulders, and an extraordinary sense of smell about when the shelling will begin, where you can get food and how best to

Just to hide from the authorities.