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Characterized as the first anti-war novel of its time, All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel dealing with the tragedy of war and the extermination of an entire generation of men, for those that "may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." The book is peppered with examples of the "Lost Generation," as well as images of man's inhumanity to man. Remarque states simply that this is not a book that …

…trip home, he saw townspeople talking about the war, not realizing how terrible it was. While not everyone involved in the war died physically, everyone lost their life, their youth, in the battlefields, and they can never get it back. In a World War I sonnet entitled "Remorse", Siegfried Sassoon said, "'there's things in war one dare not tell poor father sitting safe at home, who reads of dying heroes and their deathless deeds.'"