Robert Seethaler is a hedgehog by Isaiah Berlin's definition, the one thing he does extremely well being to write concise, moving accounts of the lives of "unimportant" people. In A whole life he fills a short novel with the life of one man; here he creates a composite portrait of a small Austrian town by giving voices to a selection of the occupants of its graveyard.

This could be a self-indulgent and sentimental project in other hands, but Seethaler handles it with compassion, wit and a non-judgmental ear that gives the same weight to a centenarian as to a teenager killed in a road accident, or puts the crazed priest who burnt down his own church on the same level as a Middle Eastern greengrocer or a gambling-addicted council workman. Sometimes we hear two conflicting versions of the same events, and have to decide for ourselves whom to believe, at other times there is little or no overlap with the stories of other characters. One character condenses everything she wants to tell the living into a single word, others take all the space they can get.

I don't think you'd want to read several of Seethaler's books in quick succession, but taken every now and then they can be quite rewarding. ( )

The novel has a good variety of characters, incidents and moods, is competently written, and by the time I'd got halfway through it I was too bored to read further. What Seethaler has to say simply lies flat on the page, so flat that not only does the novel lack immediacy, it's devoid of interest.

I'm not sure why this is so given that I can't point to a specific passage that was tedious or badly written. Thougj the conventionally expository way of telling the stories was once or twice replaced by a terse and fragmented one overall the book is like the background monotone hum heard from a nearby factory. The novel reads to me as if the author had decided to make his book a take on Spoon River Anthology or Cré na Cille and approached the monologues as tasks to be ticked off a list, the completion of each the only goal. Disappointing, almost instantaneously forgettable.

‘’Did I talk about tomorrow? Did I tell you that I love you? Do you remember?’’

In a German town, the dead have indeed their own stories to tell. Imagine if the deceased got together to narrate their lives and the way they came to the Certain end. Not as spooks but as actual spirits, with a voice like our own, but deepened with the wisdom of the Other Side.

In Robert Seethaler’s exceptional novel, a diverse Chorus narrates personal stories of love, loss, hope, companionship and isolation, spanning the stormy years of the previous century. Voices within a community, people locked in flats, people tending their gardens, strolling down sunlit streets, falling in love or into despair. A woman says goodbye to her husband, a man thinks of unrequited love, a priest loses his faith. Families coming together, families falling apart. People fall prey to addictions, others try to find their independence. We search for love and understanding. Some of us are fortunate, others less so. But the end of the journey is there.

A novel such as this is hard to describe. Seethaler’s writing is haunting and quiet, not morbid. The voices of the characters are direct, moving. This is not a dark journey. It is a strange concert, a walk down memory lane, a cry that should be heard.

‘’But perhaps the dead had no interest whatsoever in the things that lay behind them. Perhaps they would talk about what it was like over there. How it felt to stand on the other side. Summoned. Called home. Gathered in. Transformed.’’

Many thanks to Picador and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ ( )

Etre la plus vieille n’est pas un exploit et on n’y gagne rien. On meurt exactement à cent cinq ans comme à quatre-vingt-cinq ou à trente-deux ans, et la rançon d’une si longue vie s’appelle solitude.
(p. 209, “Annelie Lorbeer”).

Le dernier livre que j’ai acheté avant le confinement et la fermeture des librairies de ce printemps, suite à une émission sur France Culture. Je ne savais pas alors que ce livre serait le dernier avant longtemps… Je l’ai lu peu de temps après, confinée chez moi. On pourrait penser qu’il n’est pas gai : chaque chapitre est le monologue d’un mort, enterré dans ce fameux champ d’une petite village indistincte d’Allemagne.
Les monologues des morts sont à l’image des vivants, il y en a des gais et des lumineux, il y en a des tristes, des aigris, des revanchards. C’est peut-être cela qui est le plus déstabilisant, se dire que la mort n’est qu’une continuation de la vie en plus immobile, elle n’apporte aucune solution, aucun réconfort, pas même aux morts.
Le livre est intéressant par la variété de ses voix, comme un petit échantillonnage de l’humanité que l’on rencontre dans une petite ville provinciale de notre vieux continent. Il est aussi intéressant quand les monologues se répondent, non pas qu’ils dialoguent, mais parce qu’ils décrivent les mêmes situations, mais vues d’angles différents.
Une lecture assez courte et facile, pour un roman qui mérite d’être découvert.

„Das Feld“ ist der Friedhof des Ortes Paulstadt. Im Buch hört man die Stimmen der Toten sprechen, kurze oder lange Geschichten erzählen. Ich fand das ziemlich gut, vor allem, weil über allem Erzählten, so schlimm und traurig es auch ist, der Gedanke schwebt: „Es ist vorbei. Es liegt hinter mir. Es spielt keine Rolle mehr.“
Ich habe das Buch als Hörbuch gehört. Das ist einerseits gut, da der Autor wirklich gut liest und den Stimmen eigene Charaktere verleiht. Andererseits hätte ich das Buch gern gelesen, da man dann zurück blättern hätte können und den Querverweisen nachspüren. So musste ich sie mir merken, was nicht immer gelang.
Auf jeden Fall mochte ich das Buch und habe es sehr gern gehört. ( )