Books: Quiet on the Eastern Front

A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE (378 pp.)—Erich Maria Remarque—Harcourt, Brace ($3.95).

Off the printed page, Erich Maria Remarque is a connoisseur of the good things in life—art, music, brandy. In his books, he is a collector of the evil things of his time—war, homelessness. futility. But his taste as a collector is rarely original, and perhaps too sentimental. When he was 18, he marched off to war with the Kaiser's armies; the result (not published until 1929) was All Quiet on the Western Front, still the best item in his collection. More recent history has given Remarque...