Resumo de All Quiet On The Western Front

Write your abstract here.The name of this great war classic, published in 1929, comes from the last page of the book: the day the fictional soldier, Paul Baumer died was an ordinary day in World War I as judged by the army report of the conditions: All quiet on the western front.( The writer himself served in the front and was wounded five times, this is an eye witness account.)This novel is a full color, blinding, luminous portrait of the harsh realities of World War I and for that matter, any belic conflict. the twenty young recruits who volunteered to serve their country were so young that some of them shaved themselves for the first time before going to the recruitment office. The prose in this book is spare and simple. the narrator tells us the stories of triumph and tragedy of the young soldiers as they develop. It's mostly tragedy. Bodies are blown off, limbs are severed, people decapitated on the front lines as the protagonists jump from trench to trench, unrolling the barbwire. We realize that the theory and diplomacy of war has little or no conexion with the reality in the front. We understand that when you're jumping in a fox hole in what may be your last escape from death, nothing much matters in the world; all the scales of values in anyone's world, in any time in history are of little consequence when you may die any moment. The most important things become the military rations and the pleasure to use the toilet in company of other soldiers, in the great outdoors when you are on break from the front lines, playing a game of cards and smoking together. The platoon members rather than companions, become one and the same person under these conditions. The instinct of survival is sharpened to its most acute level in order to go on but still, in the end, it all evens out and no one can stay indefinitely in the front without getting hit or killed. Remarque makes a poignant early comment in the book:the teachers and war activists that stimulated this group of youngsters to volunteer have no idea what war is like and live vicariously through the youths by encouraging them to enlist. These young men are just releasing themselves from the bonds of their mothers, not yet able to establish roots in the world through another female - lover, wife- and yet they are already dying in large numbers, leaving behind a very shallow footprint. Even the chance to go on leave and visit the motherland becomes a torture because no one understands what you've been through except those who were there with you and leave is too short, the return to the front feels almost like a death sentence. The narrator insists that the motives and moment to moment thoughts and breaths of every soldier, regardless if German, French, Russian or American are exactly the same. He insists how futile it is that man should raise his hand over other man of whatever nationality. If the kings, generals governments that decide whether to go to war or live peacefully had any idea what the front is like,in other words: if it were up to the soldiers, there would be no wars at all. He insists in driving this point home for generations to come hoping to spare others the miserable suffering he and his companions endured. How sad to see that there have been so many more conflicts since the end of World War I. It is fortunate that Remarque, who became instantly famous for this powerful book died in 1970. It would be very sad for him to see the state of affairs in the twenty first century in our planet. This is a -must read- book. Simple, true, eternal. Someone will read it for as long as there is printed word.

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