In 1914, a room full of fresh-faced and idealistic German schoolboys are persuaded by their schoolmaster to join the ‘glorious war.’ They sign up with the zeal and enthusiasm of youth. All Quiet on the Western Front audiobook is a fascinating story of a young ‘unknown soldier’ witnessing the terror and disappointment of trench life.
All Quiet on the Western Front audiobook
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another. I see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring.
All Quiet on the Western Front audiobook is peppered with memorable episodes, such as cooking a stolen goose in the middle of a bombardment or stabbing a Frenchman to death in a panic while sheltering in the same shell-hole. The preparations made to allow a hospital inmate to have a conjugal visit with his wife while the other inmates in the room focus on “a boisterous game of cards.”
If you open All Quiet on the Western Front audiobook now, it is still as relevant as it was decades ago. It’s both forceful and stunning. This is the narrative of Paul Bäumer, a German soldier, and his colleagues. Because the book is so well-known. You will feel like you have never read such moving language about a soldier’s relationship with the environment rather than a lady. The writing is simply outstanding.
Having said that, this is a fiction. All Quiet on the Western Front audiobook isn’t a memoir. Remarque was only on the front lines for a month (whereas Jünger, who supposedly had the time of his life, was there for years). Brian Murdoch’s 1994 translation is outstanding and flows quite smoothly; he also offers a thoughtful and unpretentious commentary that – finally, a publisher who gets it! – is put as an Afterword to avoid spoiling the narrative itself. Overall, a really strong and emotional work of writing: if I had to suggest just one current novel from the First World War, this is most likely it.
All Quiet on the Western Front audiobook is cautionary There are novels that praise and even romanticize wars, and then there are those who exult in the martial experience. Remarque, on the other hand, has developed a basic tale that concentrates on the man and how this terrible moment impacts his life. In doing so, Remarque affirms the worth of that human life, as well as all life, and casts a critical, scathing light on war. This is a fast stab in the gut, a not-so-subtle reminder that there are serious, very real, and tragic moments documented in literature that defy petty classification and cynicism, actual events that cannot be trivialized and placed on a genre-specific bookcase.
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