Arch of Triumph (novel)
Arch of Triumph (German: Arc de Triomphe) is a 1945 novel by Erich Maria Remarque about stateless refugees in Paris before World War II. Written during his exile in the United States (1939–1948), it was his second worldwide bestseller after All Quiet on the Western Front.[1] It was made into a feature film in 1948 and remade as a television film in 1984.[2]
 First US edition | |
| Author | Erich Maria Remarque |
|---|---|
| Original title | Arc de Triomphe |
| Translator | Walter Sorell and Denver Lindley |
| Country | United States |
| Language | German |
| Genre | War novel |
| Publisher | Appleton-Century (US) |
Publication date | 1945 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 455 pp |
| OCLC | 296103 |
Plot summary
Set in 1939, and, despite having no permission to perform surgery, Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon and a stateless refugee living in Paris, has been ghost-operating on patients for two years on the behalf of two less skillful French physicians.
Unwilling to return to Nazi Germany, which has stripped him of his citizenship, and unable to legally exist anywhere else in pre-war western Europe, Ravic manages to hang on. He is one of many displaced persons without passports or any other documents, who live under a constant threat of being captured and deported from one country to the next, and back again.
Though Ravic has given up on the possibility of love, life has a curious way of taking a turn for the romantic, even during the worst of times, as he cautiously befriends an actress.
Main characters
- Ravic – a refugee surgeon from Germany who has no citizenship (his real name is Ludwig Fresenburg)
- Joan Madou – actress, singer. Her father is Romanian, her mother is Italian. She spent her childhood in Italy.
- Haake – a German Gestapo man who tortured Ravic and committed his beloved girl Sibylla to suicide. Killed by Ravic at the end of the novel.
- Weber – a gynecologist from the Durand Clinic, Comrade Ravic; a family man, who loves to care for his own garden.
- Durant – the famous doctor, the owner of the clinic. A good diagnostician but a poor surgeon, he hires other doctors who operate on patients instead of him.
- Kat Hegstrom – an American, Ravic's first patient, sick with cancer. Returned to the U.S. on the SS Normandie.
- Boris Morozov – a tall and strong 60-year-old bearded man, an émigré from Russia; there is a porter at the Scheherazade establishment. Dreams of revenge against the communists who tortured his father.
- Aaron Goldberg – Ravich's neighbor at the 'Internationale' Hotel, hanged himself at the window
- Ruth Goldberg – the wife of Aaron Goldberg. After the death of her husband, she sold his passport to another illegal immigrant.
- Ernst Zeylenbaum – Doctor of Philology and Philosophy, an illegal migrant, lived for six years at the 'Internationale'.
- Rosenfeld – an emigrant who sells unique paintings (Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Sisley, Renoir, Delacroix) to survive
- Jeannot – a 13-year-old boy who got into an accident. Ravic amputated his leg.
- Lucienne – unsuccessfully performed an abortion with a non-professional midwife, and then went to the clinic, where she was operated on by Ravic. After the removal of the uterus, she continued to earn by prostitution.
- Roland – the manager of the 'Osiris' brothel. Received an inheritance from relatives and opened her own coffee shop.
Relationship to other works
Remarque's earlier novel Flotsam is also about the life of stateless individuals. The character Ravic also makes brief appearances in Remarque's novels Shadows in Paradise, The Promised Land and Game.
References
- Elfe, Wolfgang et al: The Fortunes of German Writers in America - University of South Carolina Press, 1992, page 228 Retrieved 2012-12-23
- BFI Screenonline: Hussein, Waris (1938- ), screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 18 January 2021.