Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance [Paperback]

Richard Powers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 1992

In the spring of 1914, renowned photographer August Sander took a photograph of three young men on their way to a country dance. This haunting image, capturing the last moments of innocence on the brink of World War I, provides the central focus of Powers's brilliant and compelling novel. As the fate of the three farmers is chronicled, two contemporary stories unfold. The young narrator becomes obsessed with the photo, while Peter Mays, a computer writer in Boston, discovers he has a personal link with it. The three stories connect in a surprising way and provide the reader with a mystery that spans a century of brutality and progress.

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A scintillating, high-octane intellectual flight of fancy." -- --Newsday

"An obsessive, witty, moving, often electrifying whale of a book about nothing less than the twentieth century." -- --Kirkus Reviews

"Bristlingly intelligent . . . Powers is a superb writer." -- --Chicago Tribune

"Dazzling and audacious . . . nothing short of astounding." -- --Philadelphia Inquirer

"Fiercely original, formally brilliant, deeply moving." -- --Illinois Times

"His writing engages . . . Sentence by sentence and page by page, the work shows Mr. Powers to good advantage." -- --New York Times Book Review

One of the few younger American writers who can stake a claim to the legacy of Pynchon, Gaddis, and DeLillo. -- --Gerald Howard, The Nation

Richard Powers is America's greatest living novelist. -- --Tom Bissell, The Boston Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 2nd ptg. edition (July 31, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060975091
• ISBN-13: 978-0060975098
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #725,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Intelligent, Complex Novel of Ideas, July 26, 2002

By 

"botatoe" (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (Paperback)

In 1910, Richard Powers relates in "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance," the German photographer August Sander came upon the idea of an epic photographic collection to be called "Man of the Twentieth Century." Sander went on, during the next several decades, to take thousands of photographs of everyday life, "a massive, comprehensive catalog of people written in the universal language-photography."

One of Sander's photographs, taken in May, 1914, depicts three German farmers standing in a muddy road, their heads turned to the camera. The three farmers are dressed in their best suits, white shirts, ties, hats, and walking sticks. They are on their way to a dance. As Powers' first person narrator writes, "the date sufficed to show that they were not going to their expected dance. I was not going to my expected dance. We would all be taken blindfolded into a field somewhere in this tortured century and made to dance until we'd had enough. Dance until we dropped."

From this intriguing beginning, Richard Powers tells three stories, each of them connected through the photograph and through time. The first is that of the narrator, who stumbles upon Sander's photograph at the Detroit Institute of Arts. He becomes obsessed with the haunting aura of the photograph and spends the next several months trying to find out more about the photographer and the three men in the photograph. The second is that of the three farmers themselves-Hubert, Peter and Adolphe-and what happens to each of them when the Great War breaks out in Europe. The third story is that of Peter Mays, a writer for a computer trade magazine in 1980s Boston, who also becomes obsessed-not with the photograph, but with a beautiful red haired woman dressed in early twentieth century period costume that he sees on the street following a Veterans' Day Parade-and ultimately finds out that he has a connection to one of the men in the picture and to the events of the Great War.

To say that "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance" tells three stories is misleading, however, insofar as the novel is dominated not by plot, but, rather, by a range of discursive narratives on how the world has changed between the Great War, when Sander's photograph was taken, and the present day. Plot does not drive the action of Powers' densely intellectual novel; rather, it provides a touchstone for the narrator to explore certain events and fundamental ideas of the Twentieth Century. For example, when the office cleaning woman shows the narrator artifacts from the Great War, it strikes an intellectual cord that leads to a long discourse on Charles Peguy, the French thinker who, in 1913, made the subsequently oft-quoted remark that "the world had changed less since the death of Jesus than it had in the last thirty years," and the ideas "hidden" in Peguy's formulation. Similarly, the narrator's obsessive study of the 1914 photograph leads to an historical investigation of Sander's life and works. It also leads to speculations on the nature of photography and on how photography changed conceptions of art that derive closely from Walter Benjamin's classic essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

Ideas and intellectual referents are ubiquitous in this novel; simply read the epigraphs to each chapter to get a feel for the intellectual gyroscope that orients "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance". It is a remarkable work that demands a great deal from the reader. It is also a work that will disappoint anyone who is looking for a straightforward plot or a mere "page turner."

If you're interested in ideas, in novels with intellectual density, in narratives that force you to think deeply and reflectively about the world, "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance" is the perfect novel. Read it, enjoy it, and move on to the rest of Richard Powers' remarkable list of fictions.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent and accessibilly written novel, July 5, 2002

By 

Virgil "Virgil" (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (Paperback)

Richard Powers is probably the most accessible of contemporary "literary" novelists. In this, his first book, he weaves the stories of three farmers on the eve of WWI with the lives of contemporary characters. The "glue" of the story is the photograph that is run across at a Detroit exhibit showing the three farmers in 1914. It's a well written and thoughtful piece on obsession, change and the 20th century. Better in some ways, than even his more highly praised later books.

Powers does a masterful job of integrating several characters into his storyline and integrating several discourses throughout. Especially interesting is his discourse on the work of photographer August Sander. I frankly had never heard of him and now find myself looking for pieces of his work in libraries and online. It's always a good sign when a piece of writing whether fiction or non-fiction spurs interests into directions you'd never have gone into.

There is a connection with the characters that I get when I read Powers that I don't get with DeLillo, Franzen or other "PoMo" writers. That's not a criticism of them but rather a praising of Powers writing.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Impressive First Novel. Not for Casual Readers., October 30, 2003

By 

RV (California, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (Paperback)

This book consists of three intertwined sagas, all revolving around a picture of three farmers taken in 1914. The main idea behind this book, as I see it, is the interconnectedness of observer and observed. The lives of people who see this picture are irrevocably changed, but the prospect of having their picture seen by generations of future viewers, changes the lives of the three farmers as well. This is a recurring motif in the book.

After reading this book, I discovered two amazing facts. The first is that this is Richard Powers' first novel and as such the virtuosity and craftsmanship that Powers' exhibits in this book are truly incredible. The second incredible fact is that the picture around which the novel revolves is a real one. Had I known these facts before reading the book, I would have enjoyed it even more.

On the down side, this book is not an easy read. The story itself never really gripped me, and there are a lot of dead spots. In addition, while the prose is beautiful it demands concentration and close attention to every word and sentence. Bottom line, I will definitely read Powers' other works, but I cannot recommend this one to the casual reader.