So i ordered the book All quiet on the Western Front last night.
Since it's a pretty famous book, i wondered if any of you guys have read it, and what your thoughts are about it?
Any thing quotable that springs to mind, wich stood out to you?
I've been intrigued by this kind of books, a story about frontline-life, something wich brings the war so much closer then any history book could ever do.
Sure, a history book could tell you that the soldiers lived in trenches for example, but a story set in that place and time could really flesh out to people what it really means having to live in such trenches etc.
I've been looking around internet a bit for quotes allready, and i found some that really spoke to me, both in what they say, and how they are said.
I cannot describe the way i feel of 'how' they are said, but i guess it's pretty much everything about feelings is a statement, as if it doesnt mean a thing.
Yet it does, very much to the guy who feels it, but it gets lost in the bigger picture of the war.
It makes you feel the helplessness of such soldiers, their 'unimportance' and that they are a small cog in the big machine of war.
These are a few examples of what i really 'liked' (like doesnt sound like the proper word though, cause of the heavyness of the quotations):
"We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war."
"Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me."
"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."
"Yes, that's the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantoreks! Iron Youth! Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? That is long ago. We are old folk."
(Kantorek seems to be the name of the head of school)
Also i've seen the remake of the original movie, based on the book. (1980 version)
Still wanting to see the original movie, as i've heard that while the remake is good, it's still nothing compared to the 1930's version.
So, thoughts, opinions?
Since it's a pretty famous book, i wondered if any of you guys have read it, and what your thoughts are about it?
Any thing quotable that springs to mind, wich stood out to you?
I've been intrigued by this kind of books, a story about frontline-life, something wich brings the war so much closer then any history book could ever do.
Sure, a history book could tell you that the soldiers lived in trenches for example, but a story set in that place and time could really flesh out to people what it really means having to live in such trenches etc.
I've been looking around internet a bit for quotes allready, and i found some that really spoke to me, both in what they say, and how they are said.
I cannot describe the way i feel of 'how' they are said, but i guess it's pretty much everything about feelings is a statement, as if it doesnt mean a thing.
Yet it does, very much to the guy who feels it, but it gets lost in the bigger picture of the war.
It makes you feel the helplessness of such soldiers, their 'unimportance' and that they are a small cog in the big machine of war.
These are a few examples of what i really 'liked' (like doesnt sound like the proper word though, cause of the heavyness of the quotations):
"We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war."
"Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me."
"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."
"Yes, that's the way they think, these hundred thousand Kantoreks! Iron Youth! Youth! We are none of us more than twenty years old. But young? That is long ago. We are old folk."
(Kantorek seems to be the name of the head of school)
Also i've seen the remake of the original movie, based on the book. (1980 version)
Still wanting to see the original movie, as i've heard that while the remake is good, it's still nothing compared to the 1930's version.
So, thoughts, opinions?
