"TRIUMPHAL ARCH"
1. “No,” he said quickly. - Not this. Remain friends Plant a small garden on the cooled lava of faded feelings No, this is not for you and me. This only happens after small affairs, and even then it turns out rather false. Love is not tarnished by friendship. The end is the end.
2. Tearful cheapness sometimes grabs the soul more than all Chopin’s nocturnes.
3. Women must either be deified or abandoned. There is no third.
4. It’s strange how much a person thinks when he’s on the road. And how little it was when he returned.
5. There are no coincidences only in good literature, but in life they happen at every step, and, moreover, they are stupid ones.
6. How many words have been invented for the simple, wild, cruel attraction of two human bodies to each other.
7. Cynics have the easiest character, idealists have the most unbearable character. Don't you think this is strange?
8. - I love you.
“You hardly know me.”
-What does this have to do with love?
- Very big. Loving is when you want to grow old with someone.
- I don’t know anything about this. But when you can’t live without a person, I know that.
9. And no matter what happens to you, don’t take anything to heart. Few things in the world remain important for long.
The atmosphere of pre-war France
Why is the novel called “Arc de Triomphe”? Reviews of the book from readers express different assumptions. What is the allegory here? After all, for France this building is a symbol of victory and rejoicing. Remarque's work is filled with tragedy.
Indeed, during the course of the novel, the arc is mentioned several times, namely at its special, plot-shaping moments. Is it only in these inclusions in the outline of the narrative that the link between the book’s title and Paris is hidden?
The writer talks about the capital of France, living and having fun madly, as if by inertia. There is already a premonition of a coming war in the air, but it is customary to remain silent about this. As the novel progresses, with just a few strokes, the artist-Remarque shows a multifaceted picture of the surrounding life.
The secondary characters are striking in their artistic perfection. Luxurious lady Kat Hegstrom, who is being eaten up from the inside by cancer. The boy Geno, who lost his leg, but is rejoicing because with the insurance benefits he can open a shop and live by trading. Girls with reduced social responsibility who are afraid of going to the hospital because the money they previously earned will be spent.
"THREE COMRADES"
10. Principles must be violated, otherwise there is no pleasure in them.
11. There is no shame in being born stupid; It's a shame to die a fool.
12. You become melancholic when you think about life, and you become cynical when you see what most people make of it.
13. When there are no quarrels, it means everything will end soon.
14. A woman should not tell a man that she loves him. Let her shining, happy eyes speak about this. They speak louder than any words.
15. I stood next to her, listened to her, laughed and thought how scary it is to love a woman and be poor.
16. A birthday is such a thing that it terribly depresses your self-esteem.
17. Not everything is clear about laziness. She is the beginning of all happiness and the end of all philosophy.
A novel loved by many generations
It is no secret that, according to classical philosophy, we are also a lost generation, because we live in an era of change. Loneliness becomes our scourge. Much around is virtual, unsteady. Simple decency requires courage. Neo-globalism is destroying centuries-old foundations. Exposure to social cliches leads to the fact that extremely disoriented people cease to understand not only common sense in politics. Many, the worst thing, stop believing in love, replacing it with all sorts of surrogates.
What can help us get out of such an absurd state? Remarque gives us a hint, speaking of love as a torch flying into the terrible abyss of the surrounding reality and illuminating its entire depth.
Reading the novel “Arc de Triomphe” will help many people of present and future generations to determine their real life values. Reviews from our contemporaries, who are no longer accustomed to hearing the truth in the media and trusting the words of strangers, testify: many of them keep the novel about an emigrant doctor in their libraries, re-reading it periodically. And it is so natural for people to thirst, like a sip of water in the heat, for words of consolation, words of hard-won truth.
Such a review of the work “Arc de Triomphe” is not alone. An adult who has his own personal experience of life, having read Remarque’s thoughts about love, about fate, about life, discovers that what the writer said is in tune with the movements of his soul.
"LIFE ON BORROW"
18. Courage is not at all equivalent to the absence of fear; the former involves the consciousness of danger, the latter the result of ignorance.
19. Compassion is a bad companion, but even worse when it becomes the goal of the journey.
20. There will always be people who are worse than you.
21. I'm happy now. And I don’t care whether we know what happiness is or not.
22. How clumsy a person becomes when he truly loves! How quickly his self-confidence flies away! And how lonely he seems to himself; because his vaunted experience suddenly dissipates like smoke, and he feels so insecure.
23. A dress is something more than a fancy dress. In new clothes, a person becomes different, although this is immediately noticeable. Those who truly know how to wear dresses perceive something from them; Oddly enough, dresses and people influence each other, and this has nothing to do with rough dressing up at a masquerade. You can adapt to your clothes and at the same time not lose your individuality. For those who understand this, dresses do not kill them, like most women who buy their outfits. Quite the contrary, such a person is loved and protected by dresses. They help him more than any confessor, than unfaithful friends, and even than a lover.
24. Stopping the game on time is the greatest art.
25. I believe in the benefits of the forbidden. This is also therapy.
Remarque, author of the book
How to characterize this novel? An extremely honest work about yourself, about your inner world, “a piece of smoking conscience.” For several generations now people have been admiring the book, on the cover of which it is written: Erich Maria Remarque, “Arc de Triomphe.” Reviews from people who met her indicate that their readers not only read, but, having tested their souls with the tuning fork, believed every line of this work.
After all, the creator of the novel wrote as if he felt and perceived what was happening with all his being. This is not how graphomaniacs from literature write, boasting of a perfect but soulless style and flaunting sugary-juicy artistic descriptions. The writer was extremely frank; he revealed his soul to the reader. The parallels are obvious: the outcast Ravik and the outcast Remarque, the female actress Joan Madu and Marlene Dietrich.
This author, like no one else, conveyed the spirit of the time in the middle of the last century, and with his frankness practically changed the consciousness of all of post-war Europe. His books were the best-selling books in the Old World for three decades.
"BLACK OBELISK"
26. The death of one person is death, but the death of two million is just statistics.
27. Of course. Where is the lie and where is the truth, only God knows. But if he is God, then neither lies nor truth can exist. Then everything is God. Only that which is outside of it would be false. If there were anything outside of him or contrary to him, he would only be a limited god. And a limited god is not God. This means that either everything is true, or there is no God. Do you see how simple...
28. Fulfillment is the enemy of desire.
29. The suffering of love cannot be overcome by philosophy - it can only be done with the help of another woman.
Ravik, like Remarque, is a refugee from Nazi Germany
Remarque wrote the novel “Arc de Triomphe” about himself, about his inner world. Reviews from the press immediately after its publication boiled down to one thing: one of the greatest novels of the 20th century had been created. The classic of German origin, like his hero Ravik, hated war. She took her mother and sister from Remarque, and her beloved girl from Ravik.
A former front-line soldier of the First World War, a future writer, miraculously survived after being wounded in battle. Doctors then determined his condition as hopeless. Mom Maria saved me. She arrived, took the 18-year-old hero home and went out and cured him. And the next year she died, because the mother’s heart could not withstand the shock she received. The future writer then changed his name from “Paul” to “Maria” in order to carry his mother’s name with him until the end of his days.
There is an analogy between the author and the hero in social status. Before World War II, after the publication of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque was a famous and recognizable European writer. According to the novel, his hero Ravik also succeeded; he was considered one of the leading surgeons in Germany.
Under the fascist regime, the writer was subjected to real persecution; his younger sister Elfriede Scholz was guillotined for anti-Hitler statements. The elder sister was sent a bill for the unfortunate woman’s stay in prison with a demand to urgently pay... At the same time, it was said that her brother Henri had disappeared for the time being, but that he would ultimately suffer the same fate as Elfrida.
According to the plot of the novel, Ravik saved two compatriots doomed to death, for which he was locked up in the dungeons of the Gestapo. To break the detainee, his fiancee Sibylla was also arrested, who was tortured and raped, and the girl committed suicide.
"A TIME TO LIVE AND A TIME TO DIE"
30. If everyone didn’t try to convince the other of their truth, people might fight less often.
31. We justify everything we do as necessity. When we bomb cities, it is a strategic necessity, and when our cities are bombed, it is a heinous crime.
32. While you are tormented by many questions, you are not capable of anything. And only when you no longer expect anything, you are open to everything and know no fear.
33. Is faith without doubt possible?
34. It’s amazing how easily you give up what yesterday you thought was impossible to part with.
35. People always die too early, even if the person is ninety.
Ravik at the beginning of the novel. A man without a future
How to start a new life when everything inside is burned out? When you are in exile, and in your homeland there is tyranny and violence?
This question is answered in the novel “Arc de Triomphe” by Remarque. Reviews from readers who accepted his revelation express this conceptual idea of how to “believe in yourself,” to feel like “not a grain of sand in history, but a person.”
Remarque's hero secretly makes a living in France as a surgeon, which he performs brilliantly and talentedly. He is an illegal immigrant and could be arrested and deported back to Germany at any time. Ravik is depressed morally, he feels like a man without a future. His free time is associated with Calvados and smoky restaurants.
And throughout the novel this man manages to believe in himself again, to rise above the crazy world in which he lives. Based on the difficult experience of his life, Remarque crystallized and formulated the conclusion that Man is stronger than Fate. Having entered into battle with her, he is able to change her, often even when he is one step away from despair.
"TELL ME YOU LOVE ME"
36. Happiness, as always, has no plural, and pain knows no nationality.
37. And now fireworks! Live! Don't waste yourself! Don't let your wings be cut! There are millions of housewives without you. Kitchen aprons are not made from velvet. You can't block the wind. And if you try, you end up with stale air. Don't drag your feet! Dance! Laugh! Fireworks, fireworks!
38. The security you need is the most complex balance between darkness and clarity, between darkness and light, between the push of blood and the last nerve endings, it is a metaphysical, ever-vibrating balance of the highest tension, the embodiment of the scales that balance romance and reality, dream and death, allowing the slow interpenetration of the phenomena “I” and “world”.
39. You alone contain all of you, both my adventure and my wife.
Ravvik's Revenge
At the same time, the novel “Arc de Triomphe” poses difficult philosophical questions to the reader. Reviews of the book that concern them sometimes contain diametrically opposed views. Let's ask ourselves at least one of these questions: can there be a murder for good?
It would seem, no, under no circumstances! However, let’s touch on the outline of the author’s narrative. Gestapo man Haaki, interrogating the main character in the SS dungeons, arrested a person completely uninvolved in this case - his fiancée. By tormenting her, the fascist drove Sibylla to suicide. Undoubtedly, a lot of human blood was on Haaki's hands.
Exhausted Ravik, who illegally emigrated to France, longed for reprisals against the Gestapo executioner. And now it has happened. An officer of the German intelligence service carried out a secret mission in Paris and at the same time had fun with prostitutes. The main character of the novel noticed him and put his plan into action. At the same time, the avenger feels that he has performed a sacred act, realizing that by killing the scoundrel, he saved dozens of people from death in the future.
Remarque's incredible syllable
It was unusual even for himself to write the novel “Arc de Triomphe” by Remarque. Reviews from fans of this book mention that even small, everyday details of the work are transformed by the master’s pen into real masterpieces. Quite unexpectedly, in the course of the main presentation, the author suddenly brings forth thoughts that are striking in their depth. For example, when faced with the philosophical quote: “Without love... a person is a dead man on vacation,” many readers paused to comprehend this separate thought, divorced from the main context of the action.
Erich Remarque (“Arc de Triomphe”) filled his novel with bright, colorful and sharp dialogues. Reviews from readers compare their accuracy according to the phrase of Daniil Kharms: “If you throw them at a window, the glass will break!” In particular, they succinctly and clearly speak about religion and faith, about the just desire not to show off one’s thoughts. There are countless such dialogues in the novel. Indeed, you can sit down to read with a pen, writing down the fragments you like.
Beginning of the work
Already from the annotation it becomes clear to the reader that the plot of “Arc de Triomphe” is dedicated to tragic love. On the first pages, the author tells the story of a German surgeon who spent a long time in a Nazi prisoner of war camp. He managed to escape to France, where he began working under a different name and surname.
In the first chapter, Ravik returns home late at night and meets an unfamiliar woman on the street who was trying to die. He wanted to save the beauty and invited her to drink. Most of all, the surgeon loved Calvados - apple brandy, which is prepared in Normandy. In the light, Ravik examined his companion; he really liked her golden hair.
The girl had nowhere to go, so the surgeon invited her to his hotel. He himself was never able to rest; he went to work at dawn. Ravik was an ideal surgeon; he was admitted illegally to the Weber Clinic. But that day he performed an unsuccessful operation, which is why the patient died. He did not want to return home, although he was attracted to a beautiful stranger.
Due to his bad mood, Ravik got drunk and came to the hotel drunk. In this form, he seduced the girl, although she did not resist. The next morning, the stranger said that she had come to France with her lover. But he died suddenly, leaving her without money and friends. When she wanted to commit suicide, Ravik saved her.
The surgeon listened carefully to the girl and asked how much she owed for her rooms at a nearby hotel. After her answer, he called his owner and asked him to settle all issues regarding payment to the hotel where she had previously lived. In the meantime, Ravik put the stranger up in another hotel. In the new issue, she admitted that her name is Joan Madu.
The book is intense
Many readers found reading the novel “Arc de Triomphe” difficult. Reviews of the work from readers who have not previously encountered serious literature sometimes boil down to the idea that this book is special. Let us clarify this idea: the novel is so filled with various vividly presented themes, conveys them so organically and expressively that it forces the reader to strain his mental strength.
Reading about Ravik’s suffering, it is impossible to be in a complacent mood. In Remarque’s lines there is only truth salty with tears, there is not a single gram of the notorious and now glorified by neoliberal scribblers cloying positivism. The writer does not recognize halftones: “If it’s Calvados, then it’s double, if it’s sadness, then it’s sadness in everything...”
Indeed, reviews of Remarque’s Arc de Triomphe often indicate that most readers were able to read the book not immediately, but gradually, chapter by chapter. And this is the right way. After all, just understanding Remarque’s quotes about love takes time. And here for a thinking person there is no place for speed reading.
Continuation of the story
The next days were similar to the previous ones. Ravik lived in his hotel. The hostess treated him well, although she knew that he had no documents. The surgeon has already been taken to the police several times because of this.
The clinic flourished, all patients turned to Dr. Duran for help. In fact, he only euthanized patients, and all operations were performed by Ravik. Durand was known as a good surgeon, but he paid his assistant for his work and silence.
One day Ravik met his friend Morozov , who worked at the Scheherazade nightclub. The surgeon noticed a statue of Madonna on his table and thought about Joan.
Then he decided to visit the girl and found her in a bad mood. The surgeon made an agreement with a friend and got her to work in a nightclub. And during lunch in a cafe, Ravik saw Hitler’s executioner who was torturing him and the girl Sibylla. She could not stand the abuse and hanged herself in the camp. The man shared his suspicions with Morozov, but he did not believe him.
A serious relationship developed between Ravik and Joan. They realized that they were simply made for each other when they walked under the Arc de Triomphe. But sometimes the surgeon tried to distance himself from the girl. They were separated by a large age difference and belonging to different social classes. Ravik thought that the singer would leave him anyway, so their romance could not last long.
His thoughts were also constantly occupied by the appearance of the Gestapo man. And during lunch with Morozov, he again saw his executioner. Again, memories of the time spent in the camp surfaced in the surgeon’s memory. The man fled Germany with Sibylla, but the Nazis caught them. Ravik withstood all the tests and interrogations, but the girl did not accept the torture and died.
To forget these terrible moments, the man decided to go to the sea with Joan. They spent a week together on the Mediterranean coast. But the surgeon became bored, although he often played in the casino. But Joan liked this life, she was carried away by the entertainment. Ravik did not approve of this, he broke up with the singer and returned to Paris.
The surgeon was an overly sympathetic person ; he decided to help the woman after a building collapsed on her. At this time the police appeared and asked him to provide documents. The patrol officers forced him to travel with them and deported Ravik to Switzerland.
Final chapters
When Ravik returned to Paris, he discovered that all of France had been captured by the Nazis. Morozov told him that Joan became an actress. The surgeon wanted to meet her, but found her in the company of two strangers, beautiful and cheerful. After a big quarrel, the couple finally made peace.
But the man doesn’t like the way the girl treats him. To forget her, he again asks Weber to take him to work at the clinic. Ravik was completely immersed in his duties and hardly thought about the actress. But Joan again appeared on the horizon and invited him to her place.
Inspired by hope, the surgeon came to her. But the girl no longer lived in a hotel, but in a good apartment, which a rich lover rented for her. Ravik was offended that Joan was playing with his feelings, so he hurried to leave.
A few days later he again saw the Nazis from the camp. The surgeon could not stand it and approached him, introducing himself with a completely different name. A plan of revenge was already brewing in his soul. The Gestapo man did not recognize his former prisoner, mistook him for an old acquaintance and was delighted to meet him.
Ravik asked him to come to a brothel to continue the conversation. But he himself took the Nazi to the Bois de Boulogne and killed him. Although revenge did not put an end to the tragic events in the life of the surgeon.
Ravik soon learns that his lover dangerously wounded Joan out of jealousy. The girl ended up on his operating table. But the doctor understands that the shot was fatal. Even removing the bullet will not help save the actress’s life. Ravik decided to help her and gave her poison so that his beloved would die peacefully.
This event turns the surgeon into a sad and despairing person. He no longer believes in anything, nothing could cheer him up. Ravik made a difficult decision for himself. The man voluntarily came to the police station and gave his real name. They took him away and didn’t even tell him in which direction. This ended the description of tragic love in the novel by Erich Maria Remarque.
History of creation
Remarque was born in Germany, and from early childhood he was interested in literature. But even his early works were imbued with hatred of the Nazis and fascists. Because of this, the writer had to leave his homeland and go to Switzerland. And his books were banned in Germany and even publicly burned.
Before leaving, Erich Maria was married for four years to Jutta Zambona, a girl with consumption. And after moving to the USA in 1939, he met Charlie Chaplin’s ex-wife, Paulette Goddard. The writer was also in love with Marlene Dietrich, with whom he lived for several years in Paris before the outbreak of World War II. Historians are still arguing which of the three women became the prototype for the image of the main character of the novel.
While still living in Germany, Remarque changed the spelling of his last name to German. This caused a negative reaction from the authorities. He moved and wrote his work (genre - novel), it was published in 1945 in the United States. Marlene Dietrich did not like the content of the book. She believed that the author based the main character on her. The world star was offended, because the woman in the novel was just a restaurant singer. In the next 10-12 years, translations of the book were published in different countries of the world.
The book is a refrain of time
Remarque wrote his novel (“Arc de Triomphe”) not only about the fate of the German outcast emigrant. Reviews of the book in the press indicate that the book conveyed the spirit of a timeless era. Formally, the action takes place in a peaceful country, but it is felt that the formidable sword of war is already hovering over this deliberately carefree Parisian life.
The writer managed to feel and convey to readers both the unsteady and fatal spirit of this time, to talk about people who “had the courage to live on the edge of the abyss.”
The book Arc de Triomphe by Erich Maria Remarque simply cannot leave the reader indifferent. It belongs to those works that, when read, certainly touch the human soul. Perhaps that is why, after a while, there is a need to re-read the work.
Main characters
There are quite a lot of characters in Erich Maria Remarque's book Arc de Triomphe. Each of them has its own character and role in the work. Main personalities:
- Ravik;
- Joan Madu;
- Haake, Gestapo man;
- Duran;
- Weber;
- Eugenie;
- Boris Morozov;
- Käte Hegström;
- Ruth and Aaron Goldberg;
- Rosenfeld;
- Ernst Zeilenbaum;
- Lucienne;
- Jeannot;
- Rolanda.
The main characters of Arc de Triomphe are Ravik and Joan. The first is a surgeon, a refugee from Germany. His real name is different - Ludwig Fresenburg. Joan grew up in Italy and became a singer and actress. Haacke is a German Gestapo member. He drove Ravik's first girlfriend to suicide and tortured him himself.
Family man Weber is the protagonist's friend. He worked as a gynecologist at the Durand clinic, a famous doctor and diagnostician. The latter had to hire other specialists, since he himself performed the operations poorly. Eugenie worked as a nurse in his clinic.
Ravik’s first patient was the American Kathe Hegström. She sailed to the States on the Normandy. Boris Morozov is an emigrant from Russia. The communists tortured his father to death, so he dreams of taking revenge on them. An elderly bearded man works as a receptionist at the Scheherazade establishment.
Ravik's neighbor at the hotel was Aaron Goldberg. He lived with his wife Ruth, but later hanged himself from a window. After his death, the woman gave his passport to an illegal immigrant. Migrant Zeilenbaum lived in the same hotel for six years. He was a Doctor of Philosophy and Philology. Rosenfeld has to sell unique paintings by famous artists in order to earn a living.
Lucien and Jeannot are Ravik's patients. The girl became pregnant and had an unsuccessful abortion with a midwife, which is why she ended up in the clinic. The surgeon had to cut out her uterus. Lucienne later began working as a prostitute. And the boy Jeannot got into a car accident, so Ravik amputated his leg. Rolanda is the manager of the Osiris brothel. But she was lucky, because she received an inheritance and was able to open her own coffee shop.
