THE THREE COMRADES

By

Erich Maria Remarque

The author, whose “All Quiet on the Western Front”, is generally regarded as the best war novel ever written.

“The Three Comrades” was written in first person, about the experiences of three comrades in the period after the First World War in Hamburg Germany.  The three comrades are Robert Lohkamp (the author), Otto Köster and Gottfried Lenz. 

In my opinion, the book is more about the love story of Robert and Pat than about the three comrades.  There was very little about the backgrounds of Lenz and Koster, nor recollections about their horrifying experiences in the trenches of the  First World War's French-German front.   Instead, their experiences were limited to how they made a living by owning a car repair shop and working as tax driversi. 

The first half of the book is rather boring.  It does, however, tell how Robert met Pat in a rather interesting chance encounter. Thereafter they two fell in love.

The story starts to pick up steam from about the middle of the book, when Pat suffered a near-fatal lung hemorrhage during a summer holiday at the sea.

Gottfriend Lenz was killed after a political gathering, likely by a Nazi.

Soon Pat’s condition deteriorated and had to be moved to a sanatorium in the Swiss Mountains.  There were moving descriptions of Robert’s visit

to the sanatorian, and their conversations about the meaning, or lack of meaning, of  life and death.

Here are some thought provoking quotes from the book:

“The pillars of human society are not virtue, kindness, generosity, but covetousness, fear, and corruption.  Man is evil but loves the good when other do it.”

“Happiness is the most uncertain thing in the world and has the highest price.”

“With blinded eyes, I started at the sky, this grey, endless sky of a crazy god, who had made life and death for his amusement.”

“It’s better to die while you still want to live, than to die and want to die. .If you want to live still, then there must be something you love.”

In conclusion, part of the book is boring, but the profound quotes about the human condition are well worth the time spending to read  it.

Four stars out of five stars