All Quiet

Today’s book actually went into the Little Free Library box, because I’ve already read it. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was life changing the first time I read it. It was blessedly unspoiled by assignment. I found it at a yard sale and remembered to have heard it bandied about as a classic book that everyone should read, one that came up in recommended reading lists all the time, especially when I started looking into classical education. I picked it up and read the first section, then bought it, probably with other books. At some point I read it all the way through and cried. Later, after online video became a thing, I watched an old black-and-white movie of the same name. I don’t remember much about the movie except the last scene, where the main character dies while leaning on the edge of a trench, stretching his arm towards a butterfly sitting in the sunlight.

I’ve kept the book for years, thinking my children would read it. Maybe some of them did; I’m not certain. The book has been on a shelf in my bedroom for several years, along with others that are special to me. The atmosphere of reading everything in sight has changed to watching every video in sight, listening to every audio in earshot; the book sat there untouched.

Today I realized it’s not going to be read by my children, and probably not going to be reread by me. For my son to read it I would have to assign it, and he’s not even in my English literature class this last year of his homeschool. He’s learning the futility of war, the inanity of bureaucracy, the pain of fighting, by listening to current news commentary. He’s learning the beauty of nature and the peace of faith by hiking with his sisters and studying scriptures with me. He doesn’t need this book, particularly. It wouldn’t hurt him to understand more, but he’s becoming a good man without this book.

So it’s time to pass on. I mean, to pass the book on to someone else. It’s the end of an era in its life, coming to a change in my life. Next year I’ll be doing something else.