This was a slim and melancholy read, and I feel as if I am missing quite a bit of context. The author is German, and although it was written in 1993, is set in the mid-1930s, and so mid-wars Germany. There is nothing overtly political about the plot, but it is impossible to ignore what is looming ahead for Germany as well as the rest of the world.
The setting is a quiet country town in the eastern German countryside, and the titular character is a suddenly (and apparently involuntarily) retired university professor. The narrator is a young boy, who admires the old man. Even when the rest of the townspeople look down on the dethroned professor, he still maintains a private smile and wink for the young lad, as if they have a secret understanding. The boy’s father is the village doctor, and one of the few who maintains connect with the old man, as he is a patient of his.
But the townfolk insist that he leave, and yet he cannot leave without papers, which are denied to him. So begins the vicious circle. The boy and his father do what they can, but it is not enough, and it does not end well.
Which leads me to wonder why a mid-century German author would write this? He wrote very few books in his lifetime by the way. We were not all monsters? Things just sort of happened? I really don’t know, but I feel something is here that I don’t get.
