Three Comrades [Paperback]

"No passionate, happy love relationship between two common human beings possible as the entire world is about to experience one of the most brutal and violent spells of it's long and tormented history". This seems to be the main leitmotif of the lost writers, an idea taken and retaken over and over again by the great Hemingway himself and others writers of his generation.

The story takes place in 1928 in the Weimar Republic right before Adolf Hitler's coming to power at the dawn of the Third Reich, just when the survivors were trying to heal the wounds caused by the WW1 and starting to hope for a better life, with another havoc hanging over their heads. Remarque writes about a life-torn, cynical man, a story of friendship and love, both being the only things that matter to him, as the world seems to go towards destruction and there's little to love or live for. Going quickly and easily through this novel pages (Remarque's writing style is simple and yet so fluid and attractive), one can almost smell the violent, melancholic, hopeless atmosphere of the pre-war hyperinflation period.

Fatality and pessimism - that seems to be the frame of almost every single work of this great writer, like "The Arch of Triumph" and "The Black Obelisk" for instance. But if one knows well the life he lived and all that he's been through, one can't argue at the idea that he had no much of a choice of writing about anything else.

Three Comrades takes place in Weimar Germany. We see hints of Hitler's rise to power. They help us picture said rise, even if they don't explain it. But the book isn't about politics - like The Sun Also Rises, it's about genuine people caught trying to find love, grace and dignity in a world increasingly devoid of all three. And they succeed, finding strength in love and friendship. And that's what this book is about - human friendship and human love, the two most important and beautiful aspects of life. The works of Remarque always feature an odd dichotomy - a sort of clash between a Romantic, highly idealized worldview and grim, bland, prosaic reality. It is this that makes his works so great - the promise that it's possible for the former to exist surrounded by the latter, hard though it may be. It is this that also allows Remarque to see the humanity present in any individual, no matter how debased or outcast (witness his attitude towards the prostitutes). It is this that makes Pat and Robert's romance the sweetest and most believable one in any book I've read. It is this, all in all, that made me genuinely sad, not only at the ending, but at having to leave the world and the people Remarque created. And no higher praise is possible.

My words can't do it any justice, so I won't go into further detail; you'll just have to read it. Hey, Mr. Publisher: how about releasing a new edition that's priced a little lower so people will actually want to buy a great book? Is that so much to ask?