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6:30 PM
Goethe Book Club: Erich Maria Remarque, "All Quiet on the Western Front"
Goethe Book Club
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Online Online
- Language English
- Price Free Admission; please RSVP
- Part of series: Goethe Book Club 2023
Read and discuss works by German authors in this series hosted by the Goethe-Institut Washington. All books can be read in English translation or in the German original; our discussion will be in English. Please Note: In order to participate in the online discussion (carried out over Zoom), registrants must obtain access to the work on their own. Hard copies of the work can be ordered through multiple vendors online; the eBook is also available for download to Kindle, iPad, and other digital reading platforms.
RSVP
All Quiet on the Western Front / Im Westen nichts Neues
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time.
“[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank.”—The New York Times Book Review
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 Bäumer, 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.
Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.
Erich Maria Remarque was born in Germany in 1898 and drafted into the German army during World War I. His novel All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1928 and was an instant best seller. When the Nazis came to power, Remarque left Germany for Switzerland; he lost his German citizenship, his books were burned, and his films banned. He went to the United States in 1938 and became a citizen in 1947. He later lived in Switzerland with his second wife, the actress Paulette Goddard. He died in September 1970.
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Discussion of the novel will take place virtually via Zoom on Tuesday, June 20, at 6:30pm Eastern. Please RSVP via Eventbrite in order to receive discussion prompts and the Zoom invite link.
Discussion prompts from the facilitator will be emailed to all participants RSVP'd via Eventbrite in advance of the discussion. The Zoom invite and additional directions/tips for accessing the Zoom discussion will be emailed to all participants no less than 48 hours before the discussion begins. The discussion will take place in English.
RSVP
All Quiet on the Western Front / Im Westen nichts Neues
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time.
“[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank.”—The New York Times Book Review
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 Bäumer, 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.
Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.
Erich Maria Remarque was born in Germany in 1898 and drafted into the German army during World War I. His novel All Quiet on the Western Front was published in 1928 and was an instant best seller. When the Nazis came to power, Remarque left Germany for Switzerland; he lost his German citizenship, his books were burned, and his films banned. He went to the United States in 1938 and became a citizen in 1947. He later lived in Switzerland with his second wife, the actress Paulette Goddard. He died in September 1970.
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Discussion of the novel will take place virtually via Zoom on Tuesday, June 20, at 6:30pm Eastern. Please RSVP via Eventbrite in order to receive discussion prompts and the Zoom invite link.
Discussion prompts from the facilitator will be emailed to all participants RSVP'd via Eventbrite in advance of the discussion. The Zoom invite and additional directions/tips for accessing the Zoom discussion will be emailed to all participants no less than 48 hours before the discussion begins. The discussion will take place in English.