Reddit reviews All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel

Not really... there are a ton of accounts of the war, both from soldiers and from civilians. Go to your local library and have a look around. The Russians were amazing in the war and don't get nearly enough credit, at least as far as I was taught in America.

Here's my favorite quote of all the documents I've read about WW2, spoken by a Red Army soldier from Kirghizia during the siege of Stalingrad:

>The city is tired, the house is tired, the stones are tired. We are not tired.

This was when Hitler was literally trying to destroy the city--not just capture it, or overtake it, but destroy it. Entirely. He ordered that every man in the city be killed (this was literally his exact order), and the women "deported", most likely to death camps. His primary reason for such destruction at the cost of millions of men's lives, including his own soldiers? The city's name.

Here's the quote of a German corporal writing home to his father about Russians in Stalingrad:

>Father, it's impossible to describe what is happening here. Everyone in Stalingrad who still possesses a head and hands, women as well as men, carries on fighting.

The true horrors of WW2 occurred on the Eastern front. But, the Pacific front was perhaps filled with the most disgusting, sadistic moments--especially if you include the 2nd Sino-Japanese war (Japanese occupation of mainland Asia, specifically China, where the Rape of Nanking happened). The Bataan Death March alone stands as a record of how terrible the Japanese military was.

Here's a (truncated) quote from Lester Tenney, an American soldier who was in the Death March, taken from the book The Story of World War II by Donald L. Miller, a book mostly comprised of quotations from people who experienced the war. The previous two quotes were also quoted in this book. Here's one of Tenney's stories (he tells quite a few about the march):

>On that fifth day of the march, I witnessed one of the most sadistic and inhumane incidents of the entire march... the guard ordered us to stand up and start walking. One of the men had a very bad case of malaria... When ordered to stand up, he could not do it. Without a minute's hesitation, the guard hit him over the head with the butt of his gun, knocked him down, then called for two nearby prisoners to dig a hole to bury the fallen prisoner. The two men started digging, and when the hole was about a foot deep, the guard ordered the two men to place the sick man in the hole and bury him alive. The two men shook their heads; they could not do that...

>Without warning... the guard shot the bigger of the two prisoners. He then pulled two more men from the line and ordered them to dig another hole to bury the murdered man... They dug the second hole, placed the two bodies in the holes, and threw dirt over them. The first man, still alive, started screaming as the dirt was thrown on him..."

He goes on to tell stories about decapitation, random killings, and even an officer on a horse who rides along the line swinging his sword in an attempt to decapitate random prisoners--including nearly killing Tenney himself. All of this, however, is nothing compared to the Japanese in mainland Asia, but I don't have anything on hand to quote from.

This is the kind of stuff that really should be read, and the kind of stories that must be told, because there's no way to say "war is bad" without describing, in detail, why. It's like telling a toddler not to touch a hot stove... without knowing the truth of the feeling, it can't be understood.

If you want to read more about life in the war, check out "The Good War" by Studs Terkel, which is entirely comprised of interviews with survivors of the war, families of soldiers, regular civilians during the war, etc. Gives a great portrait of every aspect of life during that time, not just the battles themselves. It doesn't give enough about the Eastern front, however, which is disappointing to me.

If you're curious about how absolutely ludicrous the Eastern front, notably the Russians, were, check out Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale. Absolutely fascinating. Also, listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series about it. Really well presented and, though long, never boring. It's free on iTunes, under the podcast listings.

edit - Spelling, grammar, etc.

edit 2 - Forgot to mention that if you don't like non-fiction and haven't read All Quiet On The Western Front, this is basically a story designed to "stop war" by telling of its atrocities. Though I think it's technically fiction, the author was in the war (WWI in this case, and on the German side) and bases the story on his own/the others soldiers he served with's experiences. The scene where the narrator returns home on leave made me cry my eyes out. Short book but very powerful.

Yep. The Great War was super exciting and some boys altered their dates of birth so the cold be one of the 'cool kids' and enlist younger than 18. They would be home for Christmas!

Then this Verdun etc. happened. A bunch of overhyped kids got the horrible reality of war smacked in their faces. If they survived the warfare, illness, trenches etc.

PTSD wasn't a thing people recognized or understood, so if you came back and were distressed, you were branded 'Shell Shocked' or a coward.

I think I first 'got' it reading All Quiet on the Western Front
Also, The Christmas Armistice of 1914 was both heart warming and heart breaking.

The Bible has become his favourite book since he started campaigning, before that his default was All Quiet on the Western Front

There was also some chatter from his ex-wife early on about Hitler's speeches.


> Donald Trump is not much of a reader, despite having written The Art of the Deal, “the number 1 selling business book of all time.” Asked by Megyn Kelly what his favorite book is besides The Art of the Deal, Trump chose All Quiet on the Western Front. (Not sure what happened to the Bible!) Kelly, perhaps sensing that Trump may not have read a book since sixth grade, asked him to name the last book he read. “I read passages, I read areas, chapters, I don’t have the time,” Trump said. “When was the last time I watched a baseball game? I’m watching you all the time.”

Then again there's also the theory that Trump is actually illiterate, not a proponent of this particular theory, though I do question his obvious lack of a large vocabulary.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Christmas Truce is one of the most hauntingly beautiful things in the history of mankind (but then I'm European, and we're kind of emotional about that bit of WWI), but the way I think about The Great War is this poem by 2nd Lt. (or should that be Mr. (I'm not sure which he'd prefer)) Wilfred Owen, and this novel by Erich Maria Remarque, which both show just how disasterous the war was to the people (and others like them) who were out there, playing football on no-man's land during the christmas truce.

EDITed formatting (wasn't sure what to escape initially, so escaped superfluously)

edited again to add In Flanders Fields by John McCrae.

and again to add Arms and the Boy by Wilfred Owen (above).

Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills by Charles Henderson.

F.N.G. by Donald Bodey

[All Quiet on the Western Front] ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0449213943?pc_redir=1413280394&robot_redir=1) by Erich Maria Remarque

I just finished the English translation of All Quiet On The Western Front and it was a great read. Really fascinating and harrowing. The version was: https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Western-Front-Erich-Remarque/dp/0449213943

Haven't read the French version to compare unfortunately!

Edit: After looking up translations for The Brothers Karamazov an interesting point has cropped up. A big part of understanding the translation can be your familiarity with the source language. An example of this is "Pevear/Volokhonsky" being more true to the original text in the Russian language, however more difficult to read if you aren't familiar with the Russian way of speaking. McDuff is more suitable to someone who is less familiar with Russian.

This was also true for AQOTWF - I live in Germany and speak German, so the sentence structure which was at times very abrupt/blunt (I believe following the descriptive nature of the German language) was perfectly normal to me.

Consider the same when looking at the source language and translator - staying "true" to the text may mean the book is more difficult to read and understand if you are not familiar with the source language.

Came to recommend Three Day Road but u/ironfunk67 beat me to it.

I will instead stick to my other suggestion, which is the quintessential and best WW1 novel in my opinion - All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque.

You might also want to try Johnny Got his Gun by Trumbo

Well . . . if you're looking at a book simply as a collection of text, I too have never feared a line of text. What books allow, is a slow building of fear that require quite a bit of character development. I don't read horror novels waiting to be frightened, and truthfully read very little horror. The fear just happens. To be honest, it's a different type of fear - more of an uneasy feeling really. Certainly, a book can't have, what my son calls, "The scary jump out scenes". But if we exchange the term fear with edgy, here are a list of my favorite books with an "Edge":

[The Passage] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Passage-Novel-Book-Trilogy/dp/0345528174)
[The Terror] (http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Novel-Dan-Simmons/dp/0316008079/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404481514&sr=1-1&keywords=terror)
The Stand
Carrion Comfort
Desperation
I am Legend
The Sparrow
Night
Frankenstein
All Quite on the Western Front
Hunger
Blood Meridian
Watchers
The Minus Man

In no particular order - Not the usual suggestions either. Hope it helps, and happy reading!

https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Western-Front-Erich-Remarque/dp/0449213943/

Edit: Seriously, if you haven't read this, you must. Best war book (and one of the best books in general) ever written. It's graphic and disturbing, but does a better job of projecting the horror of WW1 combat than anything else I've watched/read. And the author's musings on war in general are thought provoking (the protagonist is fictional, but based on the author's experiences as a WW1 vet...he saw the worst of the worst).

Okay, first of all it would help if you narrow your search down to a specific country, since many different nations employed Cossack riders over time. You have Poland, Lithuania, Imperial Russia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Belarus, and Ukraine to name name most. However, and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you are referring to the Russian Cossacks.

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In that case, or just in general, here are some links:

The History and Origins of the Cossacks

Uniforms

Ranks

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General Information on a Soldier's Kit:

Britain

Austria-Hungary

Serbia

Canada

Germany

Unites States

Japan

France

Italy

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In general, Wikipedia has a decent amount of information on a soldiers during the Great War (Whether they were fighting for Germany, Britain, America, Russia, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, Japan, France, Belgium, Serbia, Romania, Italy, and so on), so just check Wikipedia out. Books-wise, I am a less in touch. I do recommend Storm of Steel and All Quiet on the Western Front (both memoirs of a German Soldier) and Goodbye to All That (Memoirs of a British Soldier). Cheers!

USA also wanted to get rid of north korea completely (that's why they pushed so far north if you remember...). I suggest you to read this before making a complete fool of yourself. And yes war is the most horrible thing on Earth, with slavery maybe... I don't know what's worse.

If you think war is ok, I suggest you to read Im Westen nichts Neues which gives a good insight of the tragedy this is for everyone involved.

War is sometimes necessary to protect ourselves, but war is never ok.

edit : typo

The Killer Angels is a GREAT novel set in the civil war, with really accurate depictions of the battle's mechanics and history.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a great novel set in WWI, examining young men's reactions to the atrocities and realities of modern warfare.

Hopefully that helps you out in your quest.