2023-12-13 04:24:08
There are big questions that Bernhard Schlink (79) raises in his new novel “The Late Life”: How do I deal with a diagnosis that only predicts I have half a year left to live? What am I leaving behind for the next generation? How important are truth and honesty to me in this situation? These questions are played out using a small family: 76-year-old Martin, his much younger wife Ulla and his six-year-old son David.
The diagnosis of pancreatic cancer throws everyone off course. This is also the case with the retired professor whom Schlink chose to be the protagonist of his book. But Martin already feels richly blessed by life since an attractive student chose him as her life partner. A phase of saying goodbye begins in which little seems unusual. Schlink also doesn’t do much to distinguish them from similar fates. For him it’s regarding exemplary things, regarding comprehensible feelings and situations that (might) affect each of us.
“The stories that come to me contain themes, material, questions that are important to me at the time the stories come to me. What leaving something behind to others is all regarding holding on and letting go in love – these have always been topics for me. They just change a little differently as you get older,” said Schlink in an APA interview regarding his book when he published his book a few weeks ago The million-dollar bestseller “The Reader” was presented as a free book in Vienna.
Martin is less concerned with the question of how he can gently teach his son that he will soon grow up fatherless than with the question of what he wants to leave him for his life. Not an easy answer, as he realizes as he sits down to write a kind of farewell letter. It is even more difficult to decide for yourself whether he should allow himself to be jealous when he begins to suspect that his wife has started an affair, or whether he should be relieved that she will obviously not be left alone and unconsoled when it happens is ready. What does the mind say regarding this – and what does the heart say?
The former top lawyer Schlink, who was a specialist in constitutional law, has always thought regarding fundamental questions as a writer. In “Late Life” he also lets you feel that he is not simply interested in telling a story. That doesn’t make it any easier – not for the people involved, and not for the readers either. But in the end, happiness means looking at the setting sun and being close to someone. You don’t need many words anymore.
(By Wolfgang Huber-Lang/APA)
(SERVICE – Bernhard Schlink: “The Late Life”, Diogenes Verlag, 240 pages, 26.80 euros)
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