In the late 20s and early 30s there were very few in the US or Europe who hadn’t read the book, or seen the justly famous film version, directed by Lewis Milestone, which starred Lew Ayres as Paul. All Quiet on the Western Front was one of the key books of its generation.

If you have not read this book already, you should. The translation does better, though, in those places when Paul gets more intellectual or philosophical or even poetic (as young people are wont to do). And so, the more standard English of the translation misses the slangy teen language of young Bremer, though capturing the literal meaning of the words. According to my colleague, Remarque has Paul deliver the narrative in the first person in language and tone appropriate for a youngster. Paul is a teenager, a gymnasium (equivalent in the US would be college prep) student, who entered the war at the age of 17, and by the book’s conclusion, is just shy of 20. Wheen, though adequately translating the German, does not capture the tone of the original. As a student, he puffed up with pride and patriotism at his teacher’s referring to his generation as “the Iron Youth ” now, as a soldier, he is much tougher and worthy of that appellation, but his toughness is aimed at staying alive and keeping his sanity, all the while feeling disdain for the slogans of war and the people who utter them in ignorance.Ī coworker of mine told me that the English translation by A. No longer the idealistic high schooler, who enlisted together with his entire class in a burst of patriotism at his teacher’s insistence, Paul, in his time in the ranks, has learned to see through the slogans of war. The novel, told in first person, opens at a point where Paul has been at the front for a little more than a year, having joined in those first few months. Erich Maria Remarque’s novel follows Paul Bremer, a young man in the German infantry on the Western Front. The bitter disappointment that followed the high hopes resulted in a great bitterness and cynicism towards the rhetoric of war together with a call that war as a solution to a country’s differences with another country come to an end. Brutal peace terms were exacted on Germany at the war’s conclusion, as Germany was seen as the chief aggressor in the conflict and the party most responsible for the war. When the German efforts were stopped at the Marne in September 1914 and the paralysis of trench warfare set in, the destruction of a generation of young men was the result. Read more of Bernard Norcott-Mahany's 2015 reviews of books about the First World War:

Library book reviews for kids