''Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance'' is

Richard Powers Richard Powers (born June 18, 1957) is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel ''The Echo Maker'' won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction.August Sander August Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait and documentary photographer. His first book ''Face of our Time'' (German: ''Antlitz der Zeit'') was published in 1929. Sander has been described as "the most important Ger ...

. Two parallel narratives – one in the voice suspected to be the author, whose surname, we learn, starts with P – offer contemporary perspectives and illustrate the interconnectedness of events. These voices provide contemporary perspectives on technology, the major theme of the novel. A series of rather academic essays on the nature of photography, including quotes from

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

and

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

– in the authorial narrative voice of Mr P – are interspersed with the story. The story begins with the authorial narrative voice of Mr P. first sighting the photograph taken in the months before the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

of three young boys in Germany, a photograph which is titled ''Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance'' and is being exhibited at the

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...

. The novel follows the fictional fates of these three young men in war time, as well as the stories of Peter Mays, a technical editor for a 1980s electronics magazine, and Mr P. – the first-person narrator of sections of the novel – who is obsessed with the photograph and with concepts of photography and technology. Powers's later novel '' Galatea 2.2'', published in 1995, uses the first person perspective of semifictional narrator Richard Powers to describe to a large extent the conditions under which Powers wrote ''Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance''. ''Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance'' attempts to balance the technological advancements that caused the large scale deaths in

with those that created art for the masses in the form of photography.

External links

Bibliography of editions of ''Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance''.
1985 American novels 1985 debut novels Cultural depictions of Henry Ford Novels by Richard Powers Novels set during World War I William Morrow and Company books {{1980s-WWI-novel-stub