This is one of the best anti-war classics I've ever read. I know that it's not the first one and definitely not the last but the story was told in such a way that it got under my skin. There weren't gory descriptions of wounds but still Erich Marie Remarque told me all about the horrors of war and what it does to a soldier.
When I was a little girl, there was a comic series called Classics Illustrated. I think over time I got almost every issue and read through them before I was 10. I remember All Quiet on the Western Front--it scared me. I remembered the panels in which the main character and hero, Paul, visited his dying wounded friend in the hospital and that another comrade wanted the poor guy's boots. I remember a panel in which a teacher strongly encouraged young men of 17 and 18 to go to war--it was their patriotic duty. That was one of the few comics I could not bring myself to read.
After being able to sit through most of Saving Private Ryan, I thought I should be able to read this book.
Paul Bremer is the narrator and hero of this book. While he and his friends were still students in school, their teacher practically strong armed them into joining the army. Once they are sent to France, they are sent to "the front" every day in trucks. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to endure daily bombardments and danger from poisonous gases, huddled in a ditch sometimes with dead bodies and/or water. I think I would lose my mind and try to make a run for it as some of the young recruits did.
Paul describes how he had to kill a man in self defense and then, sickened, had to huddle in that trench and watch the man die a slow, painful death. He tries to ease the other man's suffering by giving him water. He makes all kinds of promises in his head to write the man's family, to support the bereaved family and so on and so on and realizes he won't do any of it.
He describes foraging for food with his friends and the miserable conditions for those who are wounded.
Normally when a story is told in the first person, you sort of "get" that the person isn't going to die. However, after losing all of his friends to the war and realizing he will never feel at home again even when peace comes, Paul stands up one day when "all is quiet on the western front" and is shot down and killed. Surprise!
There is a reason this book is a classic. I had no idea that Erich Marie Remarque also wrote Bobby Deerfield and so I will have to go look for it.
If you haven't read this book yet, give it a try.