13 h 34 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does a better life cost when poverty leaves little room to choose?
In Maxim Gorky's Three Men, three friends grow up in the poor, crowded corners of Russian town life. Ilya Lunev wants respect and a life beyond the hardship he knows. Beside him, Yakov Filimonov and Pavel Grachev seek their own ways forward in a society that gives them little room.
City streets, cheap lodgings and small shops form the world around them. Ilya sees how poor people are treated and refuses to accept the same fate. But ambition brings guilt and doubt. As his outward struggle becomes an inward one, Gorky asks what choices do to the people who make them.
What you’ll discover
- Three lives under pressure Meet friends whose different outlooks reveal more than one response to poverty and hardship.
- The hunger for respect Follow Ilya's wish for dignity, and feel the doubts that trouble his pursuit.
- A town without decoration Enter crowded streets and cheap lodgings through Gorky's close attention to place and gesture.
- Conscience beneath ambition Explore how the desire to escape hardship becomes a struggle over what a life should cost.
- Poverty beyond simple judgment See why wanting more cannot be dismissed as greed in a world shaped by class.
Who will love it
For readers who love Russian fiction, social realism and stories about conscience and class, and anyone who wants to know Gorky beyond his best-known works.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Three young men from the poor streets
- Poverty shapes what a person wants
- Ambition brings guilt and doubt
- A realist novel with a questioning voice
Who’s who
- Ilya LunevA proud, watchful young man from a poor background who wants respect and a better life, and is troubled by what that wish demands.
- Yakov FilimonovCalled Yashka, he is Ilya's friend, a young man whose temper and outlook differ from Ilya's as both look for a place in the world.
- Pavel GrachevIlya's friend, who stands for another answer to the question of how a poor young man should live and think.
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Read and hear Tre uomini in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Tre uomini
by Maksim Gor'kij · 1900
In Russia's crowded streets, Ilya Lunev seeks a better life as ambition pulls against conscience.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 4
Three young men from the poor streets
The novel is built around three friends whose lives begin at the bottom of Russian society. Ilya Lunev is the one the story follows most closely. His friends include Yakov Filimonov, called Yashka, and Pavel Grachev. They are not heroes in the old sense. They are young people who must find their own way without money, family protection or a clear road ahead.
Gorky gives each friend a different temper and a different answer to the same problem. How should a person live when the world seems to reward cruelty and cunning? One friend is drawn toward thought and ideas, while another is pulled toward feeling and uncertainty. Ilya, the central figure, is watchful, proud and easily hurt.
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What is Three Men by Maksim Gorky about?
It is a Russian novel about three friends from the poorer parts of town life, chiefly Ilya Lunev. It shows how poverty, ambition and conscience shape their choices as they look for a place in a hard society.
Who are the three men in Gorky's novel?
The friends include Ilya Lunev, Yakov Filimonov, known as Yashka, and Pavel Grachev. Ilya is the central figure, and the others show different ways a young man from the poor streets might think and live.
When was Three Men written?
Gorky wrote it around the turn of the twentieth century. It is a work of fiction, but it draws on the poor city life that Gorky knew well from his own youth and early working years.
The author
Maxim Gorky
1868–1936 · Russian and Soviet novelist
Maksim Gorky (1868–1936) was a Russian and Soviet writer born in Nizhny Novgorod. His real name was Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov. He wrote novels, stories and plays, including The Lower Depths (1902) and Mother (1906). He lived in Russia and Italy and died near Moscow.
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