Description: I have just read The Three. It is a good book. Yes, despite its verbosity, repetition, and many other faults, it is a good book. As I read it I thought sadly that if such a book had fallen into my house fifteen years ago it would have spared me the torture of many thoughts as superfluous as they were painful.A big great dilapidated house is filled to bursting with poor working folk. Here poverty and the law of the fist hold away. The strong beat the weak; grown -- ups beat children -- beat them hard, sometimes to death.It is in this house that three friends spend their childhood and youth. One of them Ilya Lunyev (the main character in the book), is a sturdy chap who moves into town from the country. The other two are Yakov Filomonov, a meek, quiet boy, son of a bar- keeper, and Pavel Grachov, the blacksmith's bellicose son.With the insight and sympathy of a great writer Gorky relates the grim life story of these three. We learn about Masha, Vera and Olimpiada, the girls who went through so many trials; about the tragic fate of Ilya, the untimely death of Yakov, and the new course upon which Pavel sets out under the influence of his new friends.

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