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Richard Powers
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Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance Hardcover – January 1, 1985

by Richard Powers (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 150 ratings
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A photograph of three young men walking along a road in Germany just before World War I imspires one man to attempt to penetrate the photograph's mystery through research and prompts another man to a personal quest
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  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    William Morrow & Co
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 1985
  5. ISBN-10
    0688042015
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0688042011
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Three farmers walking along a German road are captured by photographer August Sander on the eve of World War I . Years later this photograph, exhibited in a Detroit museum, so haunts the narrator that he embarks on an exhaustive search for any information that will help interpret it and account for its extraordinary impact on him. This same picture is uncovered by a young computer magazine editor in his own search for the identity of a woman he has glimpsed in an Armistice Day parade. As the stories intersect, the photograph unveils the interconnectedness of individuals that is history and demonstrates that the individual's search for self through the past is likely to pose more questions than it answers. Because of its complex plot, this first novel will appeal mainly to sophisticated readers. But Powers delicately meshes contemporary problems and preoccupations, and his style is wonderful. Highly recommended for modern fiction collections. Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (January 1, 1985)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0688042015
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0688042011
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4 ounces
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 150 ratings

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Richard Powers

Richard Powers

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
150 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

R. L. Oldershaw
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2020
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Richard Powers' book "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance" is fun and erudite. An interweaving of different stories from different eras around the tragic inevitability of the First World War. A work of romance, modernization, obsession, physics, war, human fallibility, etc., etc. Not for those who like easy "page-turners".
7 people found this helpful
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LLP
4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to read
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2021
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I expected it to be a lighter read, but it is interesting.
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Simon
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice clean copy
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2019
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The copy of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance was received in excellent condition. Nice to have a copy of this modern classic again. I should never have given my original copy to my son!
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Greg L. Peck
3.0 out of 5 stars Staged or natural photography, which is real?
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2021
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The historic photo of these mean is the lead into the photo book by Sander that was banned by the Nazis. The story gives unusual incites about the war, Henry Ford and the peace ship, and the legendary Sarah Bernhardt. It’s a slow read where paragraphs have to be ingested to savor the meaning- definitely not a page turner. The author’s commentary on photography in this age of online photo posting is timeless insight into what is captured the moment the shutter clicks.
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Richard Powers...intellectually engaging and a wonderful way with love stories as well!
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2021
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Richard Powers is an amazingly interesting and gifted author. I have read 6 of his books and they have all been cerebral and emotional journeys!🤗👏
5 people found this helpful
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Daniel Myers
1.0 out of 5 stars "Attention, please...."
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2009
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This review shall be relatively brief for the uncomplicated reason that I don't enjoy reviewing books that I despise. Thus, it's simply a warning to the unwary reader. This is not a novel. It is not a story. The writing is terrible, clunky and so tendentious one wants to feed it to one's dog, or the nearest dog one chances upon after reading it. Other reviewers here warn "simple-minded" readers away if they expect a page-turner or a plot-driven narrative. I would warn the reader away who is in search of deep themes or moving, poetic language. This book has neither. What this book does have is crackpot riffs on great ideas that the author clearly only partially understands. Thus, readers who prefer lecture halls to books might just take to this work, but I'm chary of recommending it even to them. You have to fancy lecturers who are undiluted cranks and spout bubblegum philosophy, history and science, I should say, to appreciate this particular lecture.

What particularly rankled this particular reader was Powers's attempt to appropriate Proust, whom he clearly does not understand. Powers quotes Proust before the book even begins. He quotes him again and again. He cites him numerous times. But he has, sadly, missed Proust's most basic insights. The term "involuntary memory" that Powers uses here and is frequently used in reference to Proust was never used by Proust himself. The experience is much deeper than any term can even begin to convey. The narrator is at Mrs. Shreck's when he attempts to create a Proustian moment for himself:

"I thought that I knew this smell from somewhere in the past, and I tried for a moment to place it. But I soon realized the truth: the smell itself was the memory, and I was anthologizing it and sending it to the future."

No! This is precisely what you cannot do. You don't have that sort of control over life, over yourself, over your memories. You simply don't have that sort of gimcrack X-Files power. Nobody does, even Powers. You can't "send things into the future." To do so, to paraphrase Hamlet, is to pluck out their mystery and leave them impotent. For Proust, it's precisely those smells and stimuli that DO NOT register at all with you when they occur that bring back lost worlds when you mysteriously encounter them years later.

Ah well, maybe this "insight" is more your thing:

"But one might as well say that no one ever got hurt jumping from a tall building until hitting the pavement."

This notion is used to bolster Powers's heavy-handed argument that forces as strong as gravity caused WWI to happen when it did.

Are you taking notes? Good. And do make sure you fully understand the simple mathematics of compound interest, or you'll be harshly ejected from Powers's lecture hall if you still insist on attending.
19 people found this helpful
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tick0021@hotmail.com
2.0 out of 5 stars Occasionally interesting, but not entirely worthwhile
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 1999
At least two people whose tastes I place a lot of stock in reccomended Richard Powers to me, but with no specific book singled out in their raves, I decided to start with this, his first novel. On the basis of "Three Farmers On Their Way To A Dance," I won't exactly be rushing out to buy his others. Not only did I find this novel to be a chore to read, I didn't really come away from it feeling that I'd gained anything from my efforts. Powers' writing is complex and informed, but to what effect? I didn't really find any of these characters particularly interesting or worth caring about as I followed them through the many series of connections that links them all together through time. In fact, the only character who I felt *any* sympathy or fascination for is the very minor character of an old man who hangs around in a restaurant every night just to be with a young waitress who resembles his dead wife. I did understand what Powers' was saying about obsession (all the characters who are featured in the modern day setting seem to be fixated on one thing or another) and how memories are preserved through time (my favorite line in the entire book comments on how memories "are remembering to change things next time") but in the end I felt that a lot more could have been said with a lot less.
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Annoyed
2.0 out of 5 stars Shoddy packaging
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 12, 2014
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The packaging was cheap and shoddy, a low-cost, flimsy envelope. Would perhaps be ok for slim books, but this one was bigger and heavier and also being sent abroad, so it ended up with the corners and edges bashed and creased. Also, for a supposedly new book there was a small stain. Very speedy service, at least.
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I Love SevenStars
5.0 out of 5 stars 見事な構築美と壮大な思想。
Reviewed in Japan on January 15, 2011
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とにかく、この作品の情報量と複雑に絡み合う人物の相関が歴史を超えて巧みに構成、描写しているテクニックには舌を巻いた。すべてが明晰に記され、不明瞭な点など一切ない。こんなレベルの作品を２０代で描き、しかもデビュー作品だというのだから驚かざるを得ない。訳者の柴田氏による後書きでは、アメリカでの出版からそう間を置かず、福武書店（現：ベネッセ）からの刊行が決まっていたのだが、ベネッセは出版事業から撤退し、本作がアメリカで出版されてから１５年も経過して初めて日本に上陸した。
作品は複雑な層をなしつつも、見事な完成度を達成している。そして-（訳者の力量でもあるとおもうのだが）-リチャード・パワーズの文体は非常に論理的かつ明晰なスタイルだ。ただ、少々難点があるとすれば、-（これはガラテイア2.2のレビューでも記載したのだが）-、作者の博学と語彙のレベルが非常に高度であるため、-（嫌味な言い方だが）-読者を選ぶタイプの作品である事は否めない。そして、２０世紀の歴史に関する文章は、著者の透明性が消え、論文のベクトルに傾いて成立しており-（それがこの作品のある意味での難点でもあり同時に個性や魅力でもある）-、例えば日本のお家芸である私小説的リアリズムに接し続けてきた人が、いきなりこの作品を読むのは、相当にしんどい読書になってしまうだろう。しかし、この作品の完成度はそれらを補ってあまるほどのレベルに到達している。そして、再読に値するだけのコアを十二分に持っている。
これだけの作家が１０年前にやっと日本に紹介されたのは、残念だと思うと同時にまだ翻訳されていない作品が多々あるため非常に楽しみだ。
19 people found this helpful
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Amazon カスタマー
4.0 out of 5 stars よかったです。
Reviewed in Japan on October 13, 2022
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迅速な対応でした。状態はよかったです。ありがとうございます。
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みやさま
4.0 out of 5 stars この歪みきった世紀のどこかにある戦場に連れて行かれて，うんざりするまで踊らされるのだ。
Reviewed in Japan on June 10, 2012
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　表紙の写真は，実在したドイツ人写真家Ａｕｇｕｓｕｔ　Ｓａｎｄｅｒ（アウグスト・ザンダー）による「Ｙｏｕｎｇ　Ｆａｒｍｅｒｓ」と題する写真です。本書は，まず，「私」が偶然この写真を目にしたことから始まる物語が第１章。
　そしてこの写真が撮られた１９１４年を舞台に，この写真に写る三人の若い農夫たちがそれぞれの立場で戦争にまきこまれ波乱に満ちた人生を送る物語が第２章。
　現在の終戦パレードをビルの上階から見下ろした際に偶然見かけた赤い髪の女性を追い求める雑誌編集者ピーター・メイズの物語が第３章。

　この三つの物語が交互に進行していく体裁をとる本書。
　なぜか気になり手に取ることになったのは，ザンダーによるブックカヴァーの写真に妙に惹かれたからでした。
　本書で初めてザンダーのことを知り，さっそくアマゾンでザンダーの写真集「Ｆａｃｅ　ｏｆ　Ｏｕｒ　Ｔｉｍｅ」を買ってしまいました。

　さて，本書は小説でありながら，実在の人物であるザンダーを取り上げ写真論を展開し，自動車王ヘンリー・フォードや女優サラ・ベルナールの人生が描かれ，伝記論が展開されるなど，まるで小説の枠を飛び出した「白鯨」のようです。著者のかなりの博識も感じられます。
　いかにもアメリカ人に書かれた作品という感じの，知性ある皮肉混じりのその文体に，当初なかなか馴染めず，それでも何か気になるところがあり，さてどうしようかと思いつつも最後まで読み終えた今，もう一度最初から読み返してみようか，との気分になっています。

　では，本書から気になった一節を引用。
「我々は皆，目隠しをされ，この歪みきった世紀のどこかにある戦場に連れて行かれて，うんざりするまで踊らされるのだ」
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