Audiobook version of the novel Three Friends by Erich Maria Remarque
"Without love, a person is basically like a dead man on vacation."
Robby Lohkamp has a small garage with Otto and Gottfried. In the uncertain times of the Weimar Republic, the camaraderie of the business keeps them afloat and allows them to drive their cars on the roads in a way that carries a hefty fine. The young man sleeping in a guesthouse by the cemetery would have liked to fly farther - perhaps to the lights of Rio de Janeiro - but his wings were clipped by his experiences on the front lines of the First World War and by the shaky peace of poverty and drinking. Then he meets Patricia, and the world suddenly makes sense. Robby's sweetheart is honest, sincere, and yet still cold-hearted, which is devastating. And as if the bad luck of 1928/29 wasn't enough, the thugs, fueled by the fiery speeches of a moustachioed psychopath, begin to rampage the streets. Result? No matter how much one wants to live - and survive - in the novel of the great German pacifist, the brown terror that one cannot even drive at 189 km/h is coming to an end. Even though fate is sometimes against it.
The Nazis escalated the repression against the author, which had been going on since the 1933 coup, for his 1936 novel against Hitler, which was then only allowed to be published in the Netherlands and most clearly demonstrates Remarque's affinity with the greats of the "lost" generation, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Nevertheless, a film version of the novel was made by Hollywood director Frank Borzage in 1938, starring Margaret Sullavan as Patricia, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.