Sin novedad en el frente

Por Erich Maria Remarque

"Soy joven, tengo veinte años, pero no conozco de la vida más que la desesperación, el miedo, la muerte y el tránsito de una existencia llena de la más absurda superficialidad a un abismo de dolor. Veo a los pueblos lanzarse unos contra otros y matarse sin rechistar, ignorantes, enloquecidos, dóciles, inocentes. Veo a los más ilustres cerebros del mundo inventar armas y frases para hacer posible todo eso durante más tiempo y con mayor rendimiento".

Con crudeza y cercanía. Así nos narra Paul Bäumer, alter ego del escritor, el destino de un grupo de soldados durante la primera guerra mundial. Y su capacidad para transmitir las emociones más profundas del ser humano, a través de imágenes casi cinematográficas plasmadas con un lenguaje claro y directo, dejan una huella indeleble en el lector. Sin novedad en el frente nace de la pluma de Remarque con el deseo de ser la voz de toda una "generación perdida", y poco después de su publicación este relato inclemente y veraz de la vida cotidiana de un soldado se convirtió por méritos propios en un clásico de la literatura.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: EDHASA
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 26 oct 2020
• ISBN: 9788435047760

Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque was born Erich Paul Remark on June 22, 1898. A writer from an early age, he was conscripted into the German army and fought with the 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment on the Western Front during World War I until he was injured by shell shrapnel and transported to an army hospital to recover. from his injuries. Following the war, Remarque published his first novels under his given name - The Dream Room (Die Traumbude) and Station at the Horizon (Station am Horizont) - before embarking on his most famous work, All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues). In publishing this last work, he changed his name, adding the middle name "Maria" to honor his mother and changing the spelling of his last name to reflect his French heritage and to distinguish himself from his earlier works. All Quiet on the Western Front became an international sensation and was translated into dozens of languages, catapulting Remarque into literary fame. The book essentially invented a new genre of writing, where veterans would write about their experiences in war, and Remarque - and after publishing his next book, The Road Back (Der Weg zurück), about the recovery from the war in Germany, used the immense proceeds from his books to buy a villa in Ronco, Switzerland. Remarque's life in Germany became imperiled with he rise of the Nazis and soon, his works were deemed "unpatriotic" and banned throughout Germany. After fleeing the country with his wife, his citizenship was revoked and the Nazi propaganda ministry began spreading lies about Remarque, including the falsehood that he had never served in World War I. Remarque eventually became a United States citizen. Remarque continued to write for the rest of his life, publishing such notable works as Spark of Life, Heaven Has No Favorites and The Night in Lisbon, but none would approach the success of All Quiet on the Western Front. Remarque died of heart failure at the age of 72 in Locarno, Switzerland on September 25, 1970.

Comentarios para Sin novedad en el frente

[markm2315 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I see why Hitler burned it. (27)

[auntieg0412 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This book speaks for itself so eloquently and poignantly that any words I could come up with would be an insult to it, really. It is, in my opinion, a must-read for everyone.

[jhemlock-1711 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Boys and war. Boys who die as men. This story will forever haunt me. I thought I understood it until I joined the armed forces. Though my experience in modern day could never compare to theirs in a thousand years this story will still tear at the nape of your neck.

[daniel_m_oz · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A classic novel that gives a real first hand experience of the niave and innocent generation that were fed into the first real modern industrial mass war of western civilisation.

[Osobell · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Un fuerte alegato contra el horror y la estupidez de cualquier guerra

[steve02476 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

How did I get to be almost 60 before reading this book? So powerful and beautifully written and translated. Thank you to my book club for having this on the reading list.

[kslade-1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Great anti-war novel set in Germany during World War One.

[foof2you · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Powerful story of Paul Bäumer who enlists in the German Army with his classmates and grow up really quick and see the world differently now. He realizes the inequity of the situation but is now committed. A view from the German side and how with time the rations, challenges and death become real.

[benkaboo-51322 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Summary: A thought-provoking story about war and life and how the two don't really mix that well. I'd say that anyone who's ever thinking of starting a war should be forced to read this book first.

Things I liked:

Structure/pace:

The first part of the book creates context with some characters and stories and the second part kind of goes more reflective and thought-provoky. The stories and short and punch and move quickly from one to the other.

Thought provokiness:

This book made me feel/think about war/life. All the way through I was thinking about people I know, my son (what if he got sent off to war like these boys). It's short but powerful in my experience.

Things I thought could be improved:

Really tough, I found right at the start you got dumped with a heap of characters; it might have been good if these had been introduced more gradually. Pretty darn good book.

Highlight: When Paul is drinking with his mates before going on leave. This scene really nailed it for me. I saw it vividly in my head and felt it in my heart. Bang, four stars right there.

[dinadansfriend · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

The Classic story of the brutality of the western Front. A description of a soldier's initial exposure to the conflict that raged for four years. It is unremitting in the realism of the experience. Read in conjuction with "The Red Badge of Courage" it seems to sum up the "Face of Battle" in John Keegan's telling phrase. There are really no sub-plots, and no real backstory. It seems to be a theraputic book, and his later writings were far more literary and conventional.

[joe73-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Boys and war. Boys who die as men. This story will forever haunt me. I thought I understood it until I joined the armed forces. Though my experience in modern day could never compare to theirs in a thousand years this story will still tear at the nape of your neck.

[ladycato · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A classic for a good reason. This is a blunt, honest accounting of World War I from the German perspective, written by a man who experienced it for himself. This is about war with all its horrors and dark humor, and it should be a required read for everyone.

[suesbooks · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This portrayal of the narrator's and others experiences in World War I is beautifully written and accessible. The incidents were tragic and written so that I could both empathize and feel compassion. That this bok could also be written regarding incicdents occurring today is most disheartening.

[akbouterse · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This book is an absolutely devastating portrayal of World War I and all the horrors that came with it. This book is terribly realistic. there actually is not a ton of plot to this book. I would say its more of a snapshot of time in a soldiers life. We follow Paul throughout this book. Paul is a 20-year-old German soldier who volunteered with many other boys from his hometown. putting this from the point of view of a German soldier and a 20-year-old one at that truly shows how devastating the loss of life was on both sides and for no purpose. I read this book as part of a European history class and WWI is almost nothing like WWII. We know who the bad guys are in WWII. We are happy to see them get defeated because people understand the horrors of the Holocaust but with WWI the horror comes from the pointlessness of the war. All land was returned at the end of WWI, nothing was gained, and all it did was set up WWII by placing all the blame on Germany. WWI was often called the war to end all wars and I think it could have been if the response in negations afterward hadn't been so terrible. WWII set up the world to see all wars as good fighting evil but often wars aren't like that. WWI certainly wasn't. This book is called anti-war and it is but not through any sort of scathing commentary. It does its job simply by portraying the horrible reality of war.

[rayski_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Very different than I expected, but very still very good. Narrated by a German soldier describing life on the front lines during WWI. His story could've been one for any soldier, French, English or Russian. It was really a human story of fears and how men dealt with it. I'm sure today's soldiers are no different. War is hell, but hearing it in Remarque's words made it even more hellish than I could ever imagine.

[pilgrimjess · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Paul Bäumer, enlists into the German army during World War I alongside his classmates. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm but soon come to realise that in the mud of Flanders honour and glory is meaningless, comradeship and survival is far more important.The book is divided into five parts. There is the battlefield, a time when he goes home on leave for a short while, goes back to war, gets wounded and spends some time in an army hospital, and finally returns to war. This organization helps represent how different people in Germany saw the war. You have the detached view of the people back home, who have not experienced war first hand and you have hardened soldiers like Paul who have learnt how to stay alive and new recruits who haven't.The biggest theme is this book is the pointlessness of war and there are periods of philosophical ruminations but on the whole Remarque plays it straight. There is the facing of artillery barrages, the attack and counter-attack where neither side really gains ground, the screams of wounded and being stranded in no-man's land. The author doesn't shy away from the gruesome details of war, from men getting blown apart or suffering lingering deaths. But alongside these outbreaks of violence there are intervals of relaxation and simple happiness, the scavenging for food and the defying of petty authority. There is joy and happiness, pain and despair but above all there is comradeship.By the end of the book Paul is still only twenty-years old but, like so many of his generation on both sides of this war, has already given up hope of any future."We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial-I believe we are lost."Often regarded as the finest novel to emerge from WWI and it is undoubtedly depressing, it is written from the point of a view of an experienced and embittered soldier, but it is also a beautiful book. The characters are interesting, the themes are moving and well-expressed. Remarque juxtapositions the image of false patriotism and nationalism that leads to war as represented by a bombastic schoolmaster and contrasts that with the horrible realities of war. Remarque portrays a realistic picture of the life of a soldier during WWI, as he himself lived.This novel was written as a warning not to let such a pointless, bloody war to happen again but as history tells us that message went unheeded. It fully deserves to be regarded as a classic and whilst I recognise that not everyone will enjoy it's subject matter I personally found it to be writing at its very best.

[064-699196 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

What a remarkable work of fiction! I'm feeling ashamed that I had never read this novel, but have heard so much about it, I by and by got a copy and burned through of the pages in 3 days. The prose is on point, and seemed to me Hemingway-esque and doesn't slow down.In my opinion, the Nazis burned Remarque's books not because he changed his title to a non-German name, but because this notebook is filled with anti-war sentiment cloaked as it had to be in 1928 when this was originally published. To have lived by means of war in the trenches as Remarque did, qualifies him to discourse to the insanity of mass slaughter so that war.It is not just the physical that Remarque captures so poetically, but the emotional trauma as well. Several of the more importantly poignant scenes catch area off the battlefield. Paul's leave where he returns to his village is my favorite part of the book. We see the demons of a returning soldier, too traumatized to share the reality of the front lines with his family while they realize the different person he's become as a result of war. Essentially, Paul's soul is lost in spite of his physical body being unaffected. They termed it "shellshock" at the time, something we now refer to as PTSD. There are so many gut wrenching scenes of Paul and his friends confronting the reality of war, death and destruction at a point in life when they should be thinking about their future.Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is an unabridged, in-your-face, brutally gripping war story that shines brightly alongside Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms" and Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead."Only a person who has lived through the nightmare of World War 1, could have written such an amazing and uncompromising novel about the horrors of that war. The enemy in this novel is WAR itself. Humanity, the earth with its streams and gardens, animals, and innocence are the real victims of war. Mr Remarque served during World War 1 and was wounded five times.

[lindaloretz · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

All Quiet on the Western Front is not a feel-good story about war but rather a glimpse of conflict and horror that those who fight for their country experience. The classic narrative emphasizes how devastation is universal among citizens of all the nations involved. Amidst the destruction, Paul, the German narrator, has moments when he appreciates the value of family. When he has to write a note to a fallen comrade’s mother, his sensitivities surface. He hears another comrade call for his mother before collapsing, and then he realizes his own mother is sick, and he tries to shield her from the horrors he faces.

“No Mother, that’s only talk,” I answer, “there’s not very much in what Bredemeyer says. You see for instance. I’m well and fit——”

Additionally, human connections and friendships become important as Remarque, through his characters, comments on war, and death. Out of necessity, there are conversations about formerly unspeakable topics, and the men express themselves about the hideous annihilations they witness with thoughts and words they didn’t realize they possessed.
“We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don’t talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have.”

The poetic inclinations of the narrator are conveyed in some of the story's symbols, particularly the boots that are passed from one man to another as one after another succumbs to a violent death. Another symbol that struck me as significant was the bridge. The men cross bridges throughout the story and contemplate their rites of passage.

Perhaps the most poignant theme is the hopelessness and despair that the men communicate as they realize their bodies are still growing, as evidenced by clothes that no longer fit. However, with what they have experienced, they are adults who die at war.
“We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.”

[andorion-259107 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

For a very rare few books the 5 star rating is insufficient. This book is among the apex of that group. It is without a doubt the best book written about war. It is searing in its simplicity, heart-rending in its frankness. This is one of those few books that everyone should read. I honestly felt like dragging a few authors of alleged classics to the blasted landscape of the Western Front to show them how to write a soul touching classic of epic proportions while still keeping in touch with the essential humanity of the individual.

[gregdehler · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Even after seeing the movie several times this is a powerful book. One can still see the shock value it had in 1930, just twelve years after the Great War ended.

[bookconcierge · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Book on CD narrated by Frank Muller.From the book jacket: “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.” This is the testament of Paul Baumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. My reactions;Many have called this the “greatest war novel of all time.” I’m not certain I agree with that superlative, but it IS a powerful, emotional, gripping, disturbing, enthralling, and honest exploration of war and its affects on the young who become the pawns of their leaders. Remarque was himself a soldier in World War I, so he was intimately acquainted with both the romantic adventure that lures many a young person to enlist and the despair and terror of the horrors witnessed on the battlefield. Frank Muller’s performance on the audio book is perfect. He is in turns eager, excited, confused, terrified, gentle, compassionate, ruthless, defeated, or hopeful.

[profh-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A classic war story that reminds us all about what happens to nationalism, patriotism, and bravado when young people are turned into soldiers. Should be a compulsory read for anyone considering military service.

[dolly22_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

An excellent account of a young soldier who encounters the horror and reality of war. Highly recommended.

[skavlanj · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A Book About War*If there is a more disheartening book about the First World War, I don't want to read it.All Quiet on the Western Front is is a brutal book; there is nothing redeeming in it. Which is appropriate for an anti-war book. Through the narration of a German soldier, we see the horror of the war, its pointlessness. Remarque makes very few direct statements against the war; instead, he lets their hardships and deaths speak to us. And they speak powerfully.* - I've had to set my themed reading list aside for now, as I'm taking a couple literature classes this summer through a state program that provides free tuition for Texas residents over 55. This novel is assigned for my War and Literature class that's focused on the First World War.

[paul9the9well9read · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Re-reading All Quiet on the Western Front carries just as much impact as in the first reading of it.
Avid readers will read few books that will remain with them, influence their thinking and stir their emotions from the second they turn the last page until the moment their lives end. All Quiet on the Western front is one such book. No one can read it, be unaffected by it and fail to recall reading it years after they have finished it.
It is difficult to pin down which specific elements of it make it so memorable, but there is one attribute worth noting. All Quiet on the Western Front describes every aspect of going to war, from the first enthusiasm for it felt by the foolish young sand the old men who will not have to go fight, to the actual day-to-day experience of the terror on the battlefront, to the stench of death and dying, to the horror of the hospitals with their amputations and understaffing and even including the impact on the survivors whose wil never be the same again.
I first read “All Quiet” when I was in college and the war in Vietnam was heating up. Reading it moved me to participate in the protests, write countless letters to my unsympathetic Congressman and to actively question America engaging in any war since that time. The war in Vietnam and WW I had one horrible thing in common: no one knew then, and no historian since then, ever understood why we fought or what we hoped to achieve. Both wars were horrific stupidities for which then as now there is no reasonable explanation.
Such monumental stupidities ought to stand as lessons in and of themselves that we have no reason to ever engage in armed conflict. The lesson is wasted. Books like All Quiet on the Western Front are the necessary artifacts of these crimes against humanity and serve as potent warnings against waging war again. But, of course, the lessons of the book and the lessons of the actual experience of war go on being ignored as politicians find a new and better lies for spilling the blood of the nation’s young again and again.

[b.masonjudy · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Damn Remarque! He builds a beautiful and whole account of Paul's experience during the Great War, covering all facets of the soldier's experience without giving the reader too much. It feels hard to judge a classic, of course it's got to be good on some level it's been around this long right?, but I did enjoy the instances in the company that showed how much of the boys' youth had been taken away and as all the men drop like dominos at the end the title comes back around in a truly effective gut-punch. There's certainly an aspect of choppiness to the narrative, one could skip chapters without losing too much and come back to them, but it demonstrates the author's ability to capture these concentrated instances in the war and mimics narrator's own blurred chronology.

[jrthebutler · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Considered by many the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is Erich Maria Remarque’s masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.

[sheila1957 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Wow! When I first read this in my freshman year of high school I hated it. Now what a story! The prose is so beautiful and powerful. I liked the first person point-of-view through Paul's eyes. I also like the stream of consciousness of Paul's thoughts on the war and war in general. He was so right about how the soldiers would not fit in after the war. His sentiments are as true today as they were then. Paul shows what a soldier goes through and how he can never talk about it to someone who has never fought in a war. Words cannot describe seeing all your friends die. Others cannot understand the horribleness of what the soldiers lived unless they have lived through battles, trenches, bombardments, snipers, gas attacks, the dirt and filth. This book is as timely today as in 1929 when it was published. We don't seem to have learned much during that time either as wars still continue. Toward the end of the book, Paul states that the factory owners got wealthier--how little things have changed.

[atdcross · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is a masterpiece.This novel follows Paul Baumer and his classmates who all enlisted at 18 years of age, encouraged by their "schoolmaster," in the German Army during WW1. This is a superb translation, making you feel what these soldiers feel, putting you right there in the battle with them, but not only in the battle but also inside their young, wounded souls. This novel is a gut-wrenching account of the futility and wastefulness of war, especially for the young.

[lukerik-1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

An unexpectedly beautiful book. I liked the way he would mirror horror and humour, memory and the loss of the past. Or at the beginning where he builds a picture of the degradation of the human animal only to contrast it with a description of the psychic force of the Front that you can’t help feeling the awe of, even when you know that it’s just a killing zone. Really, I can’t fault the book.It’s obvious why the Nazi’s would hate it so much. It’s completely off-message. What was Remarque thinking!? I have added a star for getting banned by the Nazis