All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 I read this book in high school and I have probably read it three or four times over the years. I've also viewed the movie based on the book probably a half a dozen times. It is a very depressing book about war, human nature and the slaughter of young men. Unlike today's combat, World War I was often fought hand-to-hand and in the trenches. The language and emotions in the book are simple yet profound.

Old men send young men to die. The reader follows the of Paul Baumer, a German university student turned soldier and views the carnage through his eyes. He sees his friends killed and wounded. He sees the worst in human nature. He becomes inured to the violence and carnage.

The feelings that I had reading this book 50 years ago are still with me today as I reread the story. Profound sadness. And less than 20 years after the end of World War I, Europe was engulfed in violence again.


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The Spy by Paulo Coelho

The Spy by Paulo Coelho
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 I read this novel in one day. The book is about Mata Hari a woman who was executed for being accused as a spy during World War I. And that is pretty much what I knew about Mata Hari till I read this book. As it turns out, she was not really a spy but a feminist trying to live on her terms. She was a dancer/stripper and a "companion" to many men of influence and power. She aroused interest and contempt in various elements of French society. She struggled in her early life and came to an epiphany from a tragic event that she witnessed. She quickly left an unhappy marriage to a physically and mentally abusive husband and a very boring life. It turned out that she wound up using her body through dance and prostitution to move on with her life.

She marveled right before her death, "How was it that a woman who for so many years got everything she wanted can be condemned to death for so little? That is the essence of this book…

This reader sympathized with Mata Hari's struggles to be independent and was dismayed at the injustice forced on her at the end of her life.


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