Customer Reviews
BEST BOOK EVER - By: CHRISTOPHER, 16 Apr 2004 
Basicallly, if you've read "All Quiet" then you must follow up with this book to fully realise the tragedy that WW1 brought to Europe. Whereas "All Quiet" focuses on the times during the war itself, "Road Back" concentrates on the aftermath & here is where things get a whole lot worse. Personallly, this book is better than "All Quiet", as for me it highlighted the fuller sense of despair & hoplessness that remained, & which you would not totallly understand by reading "All Quiet" alone. The book never fails to vividly describe the domestic devastation caused by the war, but the final two chapters & the epilogue are the most blisteringly intense I have ever read, & hammer Remarque's point home ferociously & faultlessly. It's essential reading if you've read "All Quiet"; it's an unfailingly vivid look on the havoc caused by WW1 in post-war society & in those who returned. Superb!
a truely compelling, remarcably written book - By: , 18 Aug 1999 i have recently read All Quiet On The Western Front, Remarque's first novel. to follow it up, i have read The Road Back. to anyone who's read the first, the only way to give closure to the tough, touching story of Paul Baumer is to read the sequal- The Road Back. In it, a young soldier named Ernst & the few men left of his company come back home after 4 grueling years of the unspeakable horrors of military life in World War 1 only to discover that the world may no longer be at war, but there's still a war far more horrifical raging in their own hearts. They must now fight to fit back into society, & stay true to themselves & their dead comrades. In this story of lost youth & the fight for survival, Ernst & his friends fight to regain control of their shattered lives & go on in what seems to be an almost pointless existance, finding hope in the strangest places... And as Remarque once said, this is a story of 'a generation ruined by war'.
A beautiful book - By: , 16 Jul 1998 As with Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun", this book is beautiful & devastating. If only we had listened to Trumo's & Remarque's voices crying in the wilderness of the post-WWI years, we would have spared 60 million lives & our national soul as well. Read it & weep. Read it & work like hell to end war & war-making.
