Book info

• Title A Whole Life
• Author Robert Seethaler
• Year 2014
• Genre Contemporary

Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he doesn't ask for her hand in marriage, but instead has some of his friends light her name at dusk across the mountain. When Marie dies in an avalanche, pregnant with their first child, Andreas' heart is broken. He leaves his valley just once more, to fight in WWII - where he is taken prisoner in the Caucasus – and returns to find that modernity has reached his remote haven...

Thoughts

You have to be in the right mood for a book like this, but when you are, it is a wonderful experience. I read through this in just a couple of short sittings - racing through the calm, simple, gentle life of Andreas Egger, who lived the best he could in relatively reduced circumstances. It was simple, and really not that much happened, but at the same time it was somehow unputdownable.

Rating: 5 / 5