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This book is even more powerful than the film--and that film is one of the greatest war films ever made But then this is perhaps the greatest Anti-War novel in European Literature. I read the older standard translation by A.W. Wheen done in 1929. In 1993 Brian Murdoch published a new translation and I toyed with getting it. But after reading a number of quite mixed reviews, I decided to stick with the older version as it has stood the test of time.
All Quiet . . . is a devastating attack on the glory of fighting for the "honour" of one's country. It is filled with horror and soul-destroying events. It is also filled with compassion for the innocent young lives that were sacrificed on this terrible altar of blood. Yet there is a kind of consolation. Even in this cauldron it is possible for true heroism to exist--the heroism of validating the self--not through blood-letting but through a recognition of the falsehood of a mirage of glory. Wilfred Owen put this recognition powerfully:
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori."
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