Three Comrades
by Erich Maria Remarque
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Book Summary Information
Author: Erich Maria RemarqueEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-01-27
ISBN: 0449912426
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Three Comrades
Book Review: A Bad Translation of a Marvelous Book
Summary: 3 Stars
Without a doubt, "Three Comrades" is the saddest story I have ever read and one of the most beautiful. This novel is vastly under-rated. It should be on every "classics" list of great fiction. There is not a rating category high enough for it.
Many lovely pictures emerge page after page -- of Berlin in the late 1920's. Take page 129 as a small example: "We walked on. Then we came to the graveyard. The trees rustled, their tops were no longer visible. As the mist continued to thicken the fairy light began. May bugs came reeling drunk out of the limes and buzzed heavily against the wet panes of the street lamps. The mist transformed everything, lifted it up and bore it away, the hotel opposite was already afloat like an ocean liner with lighted cabins on the black mirror of the asphalt, the grey shadow of the church behind it became a ghostly sailing-ship with tall masts, lost in the grey-red light; and now the houses, like a long line of barges, came adrift and began to move."
The characters are remarkable, and their stories are heart-breaking, while at once ringing with humor and pathos. Some episodes are hilarious; others make you cry unabashedly.
Three Comrades is a love story - no it's several love stories. One is of Robby and Pat (yes, unusual names for a story about young Germans). Another is among the abiding friendships and devotion between the three young men, their triumphs and travails, as the deteriorating social structure of pre-Hitler Germany crumbles around their feet, ruining their lives. The final love story is the heart-warming thread of true care and care-taking shown by the wider circle of the gloriously depicted players in this story, some sad and forlorn, others happy-go-lucky and still others greedy and vile. The mix is, of course, sensational, real and vivid. Every single character speaks with clarity in his or her own voice.
The story itself (once you pass through the first 40 pages) is simply compelling. You sense quickly the doom that is bound to come; you know that some will die; you know that tragedy will eventually win. You know all of this, and it does not matter. You cheer and root for these young people. You want them to live and thrive. You hope against hope that everything will be all right. You laugh, cry and exult with them. And in the end you are moved in your soul by their plight.
The story is - in a word - sensational. As to the fate of the characters, page 375: "'No,' said I, `I don't want to betray anything. But I do want that not everything we touch should always go to pieces.'" On the German social order, page 402: "'...They don't want politics at all. They want substitute religion.' He looked around. 'Of course. They want to believe in something again - in what, it doesn't matter. That's why they are so fanatical, too, of course.'"
You will laugh and you will cry and you will be unable to put this book down or stop yourself from thinking about these people long after you finish it.
While it might help, you need not read "All Quiet on the Western Front" first. Three Comrades stands on its own merits.
Now, why did I not give this book a 5 star rating, one that it clearly deserves and that most reviewers correctly award to it? It is because of the translation by A. W. Wheen. The feeling that the characters in this story are German and that the story takes place in Germany in the late 1920's is completely lost by the "over-the-top," slangy 100% British translation. This is not a British movie about Germans. This is a German language novel in need of a good English language translation. But, the way these people talk --- via this translation --- completely neutralizes their German-ness. The story could be in Southampton, or even Denver for that matter. I grew tired of the colloquial British-isms. Why not keep some of the German language --- un-translated? Except for an occasional "Ach!" we are forced to read this story in rather low-level British English --- a complete travesty. I don't want to see the word "lorry" or the word "kerb" or "tyres" or the phrase "...knocked the car down to us" in this story. Such a translation is an insult to the book, the author, and the historical value of the tale.
I implore the publishers to consider commissioning and publishing a sensible American English translation of this marvelous book, while at the same time keeping the tone, feeling and ethos of the German language, the German sensibilities and its very German setting. I detested reading what may have been an intentional de-Germanization of this glorious book by virtue of this horrible British translation.
Thus, it is because of the translation alone, not its literary value, that I decided to rate the book a mere 3. On its merits, the book is a 5++. But, alas, a translated book is only as good as the translation. Remarque deserves better.
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