Chosen as a readalong tilte for German Literature Month November 2018, this wasn’t my kind of book. Too quiet and introspective. My co-hostess loved it though!

This is a gentle and melancholic tale of a recently retired teacher who has never been able to put his first love behind him and still remembers clearly the time he spent in her company. Forty years on from when he knew her, every detail is still real and raw to him. From a working class family himself, he found Claudia and her circle of friends glamourous and exciting but never felt confident in their company. The only way he could express himself was to write a trilogy of plays that perhaps Claudia would respond to. Loosely based on Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, he puts his heart and soul into its composition but it comes as no surprise to the reader that life never works out quite like it does in the books and films he reads and watches. When we first meet him he has moved out of his family home to concentrate on finishing a book on Sherwood Anderson – still writing, still trying to find meaning in his life through literature. Nothing much happens in the book – just Paul Ganter’s reminiscences – and the novel moves along slowly, but I found it nevertheless compelling and often moving. It’s evocatively and atmospherically written and the author’s descriptions of nature and the landscape in his native Switzerland are vivid indeed. But the book is more than just an older man’s memories of his unrequited love. It’s also an interesting snapshot of life in Switzerland in the 1950s and set very much in the real world of that time. Paul’s father is a drunk, and often violent, a Union man accused of being a communist. His mother works at a local factory. When not studying Paul works at a variety of labouring jobs. Money is tight. Claudia on the other hand lives a privileged life. The mismatch between them reflects societal divisions. References to teacher training, life in the classroom and military service all add to the authenticity. A sensitive and insightful novel about ordinary people living ordinary lives.