Chapter 1

     Ok, so I'm just gonna say first that I do not enjoy this book. When I first started off reading the book I admit that I was a bit confused. It was almost as if I had opened up to a random page in the book and started to read it from there, like I was missing some important details I needed to understand the book. Sort of when you start watching a movie halfway through, and you just have to figure it out as it goes on.
     What I did like though was the charactorization the author presents. With all of the charactors it is hard to keep track of them and the descriptions Remarque uses helps me. For example, it says on page 3 "... Katczinsky, the leader of our group..." and " forty years of age, with a face of soil, blue eyes, bent  shoulders...". Those quotes help me form a picture of Katczinsky in my mind so I can identify him when his name is brought up. The same thing goes for the other charactors such as Muller, Tjaden, Himmelstoss,and the narrrator, Paul Baumer. But other charactors lack in explantion such as Leer, Haie and Kemmerich. When their names are mentioned I find myself having to look back in the book to see who they are.
     With the whole Muller-and-boots situation everyone seems to have a different opinion. I agree with the quote ," even if he were to get better, he would be able to use only one- they are no use to him". Muller isn't wrong to call dibs on the boots because as they all know, Kemmerich does not need the boots, but it was not fair to Kemmerich for Muller to talk about him taking the boots in front of Kemmerich. All that did was put Kemmerich down. If  Muller were not so direct and he talked about the boots in private, away from Kemmerich that would've been better. I do see though that Muller was just desperate for those boots and no harm was meant.
     Does anyone else wonder why words like today and tomorrow have a dash in them?


 This picture is an example of the sort of boots worn by the soldiers of world war 1.