Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52085 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Synopsis
In 1928, three young German men, struggling to earn a living, find their only solace from the poverty, hardship, and violence of the times in their friendship.

Customer Reviews

Tender love story and mirror of the Weimar period
In this book, the model for Patricia Hollman is quite obviously the woman that Remarque married twice, Ilse Jutta Zambona. At the time Remarque commenced the writing of this novel in early 1932, his relationship with Jutta was in great difficulties. They had divorced two years earlier but had continued to live together sporadically. It was of course, not only the relationship between Remarque and Jutta that was changing. It was the time of the rise of National Socialism and Adolph Hitler's 'grab for power' in 1933. Remarque had been forced to flee Germany and now, in many ways he - like Germany - stood at the edge of the abyss. The relationship between Robbie Lohkamp and Patricia Hollman serves as an analogy not only for the relationship between himself and Jutta but between himself and Germany.

Patricia Hollman is the epitome of femininity and feminine strength: graceful, elegant, soft brown hair, a delicate eggshell suntan. 'She had something then about her of a deer and of a slim panther, and something too of an Amazon before the battle.' In the novel, Patricia hollman stands in complete contrast to the world of Robbie Lohkamp just as Jutta Zambona must have appeared to the young Remarque when they met in 1923.

Robbie Lohkamp's world was the world of cheerless boarding houses, jaded bars and pubs, macho drinking and male camaraderie. He worked in a small car repair workshop, Koester & Co. The owner was Koester, an old war comrade. Robbie and another war colleague, Lenz, formed the & Co.' They were the three comrades of the story. They made their living by repairing, servicing, buying, selling, panel-beating or painting cars. In short, anything remotely connected with automobiles. In flagging economic times, they lived off their wits. It was as important to recognise the right customer coming as to be a competent mechanic. They were not above a little sharp practice. But their war experiences had thrown them together. Their first loyalty was to each other.

Throughout the novel the gritty reality of Weimar Germany is constantly juxtaposed against the beautiful, fragrant, cosy, seemingly secure world of Patricia Hollman. Escape from the the barren economic climate was their motivating force. The Weimar years shade in the background to this urban landscape of 1920's Berlin and Remarque captures the economic depression of the years in deft and sensitive ways.

Many people dubbed 'Three Comrades' as a beautiful, tender love story. There was of course, the usual batch of critics who branded it as 'kitsch' and 'sentimental melodrama' merely. To be lulled into believing that the novel is merely a sentimental love story however, is to decidedly miss the point. It is really a mirror of the times. It is a profoundly pessimistic book. The tragic fate of Lenz and the lingering death of Patricia Hollman are analogous with the demise of Weimar Germany. As Remarque wrote, he realised that a darkness was descending. There was to be no turning back. It was not to be merely an night of darkness, - more like an enduring eclipse. It was to be many years before the light would shine again

A must-read novel!
In his best (in my opinion) novel, Remarque tells an unforgettable story of love, friendship and loyalty in the chaotic post-WWI Germany. When the whole world seems to be going mad and there is nothing anymore to live for, one man realizes that love and friends are the only two things in this world worth living for, and dying for. This book is a tale of finding something so pure in the times when it seems that all the purity of this world has been wiped out from people's lives by the war, poverty, greed, jealosy, and constant nightmares. Staying true to one's feelings, not giving in and not giving up, remaining loyal at any cost and having the spirit to go on, are the main themes of this book.

This book has changed my life.
I read a lot, but among all the literature that I have devoured through the years, Remarque's "Three Comrades" is definetely my favorite. It is a sincere and down-to-earth tale of true love and true friendship in pre-WWII Germany, when political chaos and economic disarray often castrated men of humanity. The relationship between silky-haired Pat and Robbie, the taxi driving soul-searcher and narrator of the tale, runs its tender and turbulent course, as does the gruffly gentle, poignant and sincere friendship between Robbie, Lenz, "the last Romantic", a poet and an ex-med student, Kaster, the laconic owner of a gas station and stony-faced racecar driver, Pat, Ferdinand, a portrait artist and Kaster's car, Karl, "the spook of the highways", who is an entity to be reckoned with all on it's own. From Blumenthals to Georgie to Rosa, Remarque's tour-de-force characters resonate with the desperation of Hugo's "Les Miserables", and stand alone as silent portraits of the so-called "lost generation" of the twentieth century.