I Can't Go Home - All Quiet on the Western Front During his leave, perhaps Baumer's most startling realization of the emptiness of words in his early society happens when he is alone in his old room at his parents' house. After failing to feel a part of his old society by talking to his mother, father, and his father's friends, Baumer attempts to reaffiliate with his past by becoming a local resident once again. Here, among his memories, the photos and postcards hanging on the wall, the familiar and comfortable brown leather sofa, Baumer awaits something that will allow him to feel part of his pre-enlistment world. It is his old school books that symbolize that older, more contemplative, less military world that Baumer hopes will return him to his younger, more innocent ways. I want that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless urge I felt when I devoted myself to my books. The breath of desire that then rose from the colored spines of the books, will fill me again, melt the heavy and dead piece of lead that lies somewhere in me and awaken the impatience of the future, the rapid joy in the world of thought , will bring back the lost enthusiasm of my youth. I sit and wait (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 151). But Baumer continues to wait and the sign does not arrive; the silent rapture does not happen. The room itself, and the pre-enlistment world it represents, becomes foreign to him. "A sudden feeling of strangeness arises in me suddenly. I cannot find my way back" (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 152). Baumer realizes that he is hopelessly lost in the primitive, military and non-academic world of war. Ultimately, books have no value because the words in them have no meaning. "The words... do not reach me. Slowly I put the books back on the shelves. Never again" (Remarque, All Quiet VII. 153). In his experiences with traditional society, Baumer perverts language, that which separates man from beast, to the point that it no longer has meaning. Baumer shows his rejection of that traditional society by refusing or not being able to use the standards of its language. In contrast to Baumer's experiences during his visit home are his relationships with his fellow trench soldiers..