Just Finished "All Quiet on the Western Front"

A great book for sure! Mmmm, not a fan of the illustrations. However, I wonder if there are any other fine press editions out there (EP and FS etc are included in my definition of "fine")? Overall, the LEC edition is, as always, beautiful, but the illustrations were a bit more than sketches to me, and while appropriate in some ways I'm simply not a huge fan. I wish instead of those illustrations they would have gone with authentic photographs. Ah, that would have been sublime...

Oh, and now that I've said all that, I have the book for trade if anyone is interested :)

>1 astropi:
There is a FS edition that was published in 1966 and again in 2010.

2: Thanks. Yeah, it's still available
http://www.foliosociety.com/book/AQW/all-quiet-on-the-western-front
A nice edition, and I bet the plates are great, but still not particularly impressive. I know, don't judge a book by it's cover, but I don't particularly care for the FS cover... :)

The 1966 Folio edition is far nicer in my opinion. It's a much simpler design; to the extent that I would believe it was a Macy book if only it was larger. The illustrations are different than in the later text as well.

4: Thanks, I didn't know there was a difference between the 1966 and more recent edition, which I took to be a reprint.

2010 also uses a different translation.

>5 astropi: My copy is in decent condition with a few marks, and it doesn't have a slipcase. I picked it up for five euros at a used bookstore! But I'll post pictures of it here to give you an idea when I have a chance.

I had purchased the LEC 'All Quiet on the Western Front' perhaps two years ago and finally got around to reading it. I finished reading it a short while back and thought I'd write a bit about it.

The book is very intense, and in a strange kind of way, very enlightening, even though it contains so much brutality. At the same time I don't think it's a good idea to continuously keep reading books like this one unless one wants to risk falling into a state of deep depression. I might read the Innocents Abroad or something of that sort next.

There is nothing to complain with respect to the binding, paper quality and typography in the LEC edition of the book. Initially, based on a preliminary impression, I agreed with the original poster about the illustrations but now I think he is wrong. The illustrations tend to grow on you; they complement the story beautifully, and add real value to the whole reading experience. Of course this is a matter of personal taste.

I do have one complaint about the book though.

In this book, published in the post-George Macy period, the full unexpurgated translation of the book has not been used. In particular, the passages given in Appendix A and Appendix B in the article whose link I give below are not present in the LEC edition:

https://scholarlyediting.org/2017/essays/essay.eilefson.html

Appendex A is informative, but Appendix B comprises one of my favourite passages in the book.

------
There is an interesting interview of Remarque pertaining to this book on YouTube worth watching. I was amused when the interviewer asked Remarque whether his style had been influenced by Hemingway's writings and then kept asking him questions about Hemingway which Remarque continued to seemingly evade. It's in German but with English sub-titles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfQNMsBCuWg

>8 blue.eyes2: Initially, based on a preliminary impression, I agreed with the original poster about the illustrations but now I think he is wrong.

You can't be wrong on an opinion, and I was just stating that - my opinion that the art is okay. Great book, okay, uninspired, art. Glad you enjoy the illustrations, not my cup of tea.

>9 astropi: I just disagreed with your opinion and even said "this is a matter of personal taste". I am sorry I could not frame my disagreement more agreeably.

>10 blue.eyes2: haha, no worries, I just wanted to clarify that there is no such thing as "wrong" taste when dealing with book illustrations :)

>9 astropi: You can't be wrong on an opinion

A conundrum; in my opinion, opinions can be wrong.

>8 blue.eyes2: "I don't think it's a good idea to continuously keep reading books like this one unless one wants to risk falling into a state of deep depression."

Amen. I was only able to complete two chapters before I had to set it aside. I hope someday to be able to return to it.

Follow up reading this one with Starship Troopers for a change of pace.

>14 Glacierman: Funny you mention that :O
Just started this --

>14 Glacierman: Thanks for the suggestion. Any recommendations for light reading infused with humor?

>13 cpg: It gets more intense as you keep reading and somewhere in the book there is a scene which is about the most horrifying scene I have come across in any fiction I have read so far. This was my first war novel and to initiate myself into this kind of writing I read the introduction to the book "Men at War" which is an anthology of war writings by different writers. The editor of this book is Ernest Hemingway who also wrote the introduction.

>17 blue.eyes2:

Thanks for the info. I found the first two chapters to be not so much horrific as extremely sad, as we contemplate the suffering of the hospitalized soldier.

I would like to add my own personal opinion about AQWF. I happen to think the illustrations are as close to ideal as they could be for this book. They create the impression that Paul was keeping a diary and would make hurried sketches of his impressions. I understand the new film version of Im Westen Nichts Neues is exceptionally graphic in recounting the horrific aspects of the war, and perhaps some may think Groth's illustrations are lacking in that aspect, but I personally think they are sufficiently horrific (when required) and anything more horrific would have a desensitizing effect and detract from the prose. (Incidentally, for that reason I will skip the new film version--I find Lewis Milestone's 1930 version an exceptionally good film treatment, and as it was pointed out in Brownlow's documentary, it was made by many people who actually served in WW I.)

Groth certainly knew the combat experience--according to Wikipedia he covered 6 different war zones and was in the first jeep into Paris when it was liberated.

>16 blue.eyes2: In terms of SF, any of the Retief books by Keith Laumer, the first in the series being Envoy to New Worlds. These books poke fun at government, especially the diplomatic corps. I found them entertaining when I read them, oh, so many years ago.

If you want to wallow in anti-war sentiment, you can always follow All Quiet with The Red Badge of Courage. Different war, but still ugly. Not really a fan of either, but I did prefer Badge.

>17 blue.eyes2: For a less horrific but still powerful account of WWI, I recommend Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. An excellent read, and the LEC's version is well done.

>21 Glacierman: And if you really, really want to wallow, pick up Johnny Got His Gun.

>23 AMindForeverVoyaging: Yeah, that would do it.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll keep them in mind. So far as war novels are concerned I've already decided what I am going to read next: A Farewell to Arms (in an Easton Press edition) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (in an LEC edition). It should be interesting to compare Hemingway with Remarque.

>19 Django6924: The ML says that one admirer of Groth and his work was Hemingway.

My father served in WW I. I have 2 interesting relics of his service: a letter to his sister written when he was in France on (very) thin AEF stationery, and his WW I Victory Medal.

He never talked much about his experiences during the war; although he spent some time in the trenches, he was grateful he never was in combat. He owned 3 books set during the war, and they were not of the standards of All Quiet or Farewell to Arms:

1, Over the Top, a hugely successful autobiographical account of the author's experiences overseas, getting wounded seriously, and convalescing in England;

2, I can't remember the title, but it was a Grosset & Dunlap boy's book about 2 Americans who (I think) were flying for the RAF--a rather exciting book to read when I was 8 or 9; I still remember a rather vivid description of how they landed their seaplane next to a U-boat and managed to wedge a wrench into the hatch when it tried to submerge, forcing it to surface;

3, Sergeant York, York's life story and war diary. It was attributed to York himself, but a ghost writer, Tom Skeyhill, used York's diary and his verbal account to give it shape. Few today can appreciate the appeal the book had for those Americans who served.

The common denominator for all three is the underlying conviction that Our Side was right. I doubt my father would have ever accepted the disillusioned view of Remarque and Hemingway--although I think he would have related much better to Jünger's Storm of Steel.

Since the subject has always fascinated me, I would like to mention some lesser-known, but very worthy books on the subject:

In Parenthesis
Parade's End
Under Fire
The Middle Parts of Fortune

I have read an excerpt from Eric Hiscock's The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling and found it extraordinary. Hopefully I'll get to read the whole book (which actually is described as a "fragment"). None of these share the Over the Top view of the righteousness of our cause, but Manning's and Hiscock's accounts have passages showing the darkly comical aspects of war which Joseph Heller might have appreciated.

>27 Django6924: Thanks for sharing these titles. I wonder whether the book whose title you don't remember is this one:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32420/32420-h/32420-h.htm

>28 blue.eyes2:

No, I believe that's actually about WW II.

Well, though I could ill afford to spend the time researching, I did and found the title" "Wings Of The Navy" by Eustace L. Adams. Here is a short sketch from the Dartmouth Library Archives:

Eustace Lane Adams was born in 1891. He was an editor and author who served in the American Ambulance Service and the US Naval Service during World War I.

>27 Django6924:

All four in the lesser-known list have been published by the Folio Society. In Parenthesis is an outstanding edition, and Parade's End very good; the other two, like AQWF and Storm of Steel, are standard FS.

Siegfried Sassoon's fictional autobiography Memoirs of an Infantry Officer - either LEC or FS - is worth mentioning in this survey, especially for its account of Sassoon's brave stand against Our Side mentality.

>30 affle: Good to know that the books have been published by the Folio Society.

>29 Django6924: Thank you.

Watched the Netflix movie last night. It was good, but the 1930 version will always be the "classic" version and I feel captures the spirit of the book best.