Arch of Triumph (novel)

Arch of Triumph (German: Arc de Triomphe) is a 1945 novel by Erich Maria Remarque. In it, he writes about stateless refugees' life in Paris before World War II. It was the second book of his, after All Quiet on the Western Front, to appear on bestseller lists worldwide.^[1]. It was made into a feature film in 1948 and remade as television film in 1985.

Plot summary

It is 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 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.

Relationship to Other Works

Remarque's earlier novel Flotsam is also about the life of stateless individuals. The character of Ravic's also makes a brief appearance in Remarque's last novel, Shadows in Paradise.

References