Books
by Robert Seethaler
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A Whole Life |
The Life is mountain dweller Andreas Egger's, from painful childhood to his death, in 150 pages. I can't express the delicacy with which Seethaler manages to recount the passing of the years, from tragedy to contentment, the barest understated essentials dotted with sudden shining images. A small gem to live inside, and 'whole' in every sense. Jim Crace defines it 'Heart-rending and heart-warming.....for all its gentleness a very powerful novel.' Can't put it better myself!
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 89 Summer 2018) |
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The Tobacconist |
Innocent seventeen-year-old Franz leaves his lakeside village to be apprenticed to a wise old Viennese tobacconist. It is 1937, with Hitler on the rise. Franz grows into manhood struggling with city life, nostalgia and a disastrous love affair - helped by (fictionalised!) Freud in exchange for cigars - with the evil of Naziism creeping, horrifically, ever closer, ending with his one glorious, doomed act of rebellion. Often painfully funny, often touching, always deeply engaging.
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 85 Summer 2017) |
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