I very much enjoyed Austrian writer Robert Seethaler's 2014 novella Ein ganzes Leben (see my review) which dealt with the ordinary/extraordinary life of a simple man who spent his entire life on a mountain. So I was eager to read his earlier best-selling novel Der Trafikant (English version: "The Tobacconist"). Seethaler succeeded in telling the quiet story of the mountain man Andreas Egger in Ein ganzes Leben. In the earlier novel Trafikant he felt compelled to include the historical figure of Sigmund Freud as a plot component. Unfortunately, the result is literary Kitsch.
In Der Trafikant Seethaler tells the story of 17-year-old Franz Huchel, a dreamy country boy who is sent to Vienna in 1937 to apprentice with Otto Trsnjek, a former lover of Franz's mother, who owns a small newsstand and tobacco shop in the city. So the novel starts out as a comical naïf-comes-to -the-big-city story as Franz learns the ropes of retail sales and has his first sexual experiences with the Czech party girl Anezka. This takes place against the backdrop of the growing Nazi menace as Hitler prepares for the Anschluss of Austria. A regular customer is Dr. Sigmund Freud, with whom Franz forms an unlikely friendship. Franz seeks out Dr. Freud for advice as he deals with Liebeskummer in connection with Anezka. The dialogue between the boy and the great man is preposterous and hardly believable. However, Dr. Freud does provide some counsel that has an amusing outcome:
"Also pass auf, und merke sie dir gut! Erstes Rezept (gegen dein Kopfweh): Hör auf, über die Liebe nachzudenken. Zweites Rezept (gegen dein Bauchweh und die wirren Träume): Leg dir Papier und Feder neben das Bett und schreib sofort nach dem Aufwachen alle Träume auf. Drittes Rezept (gegen dein Herzweh): Hol dir das Mädchen wieder – oder vergiss sie! "
Franz actually does follow this advice and jots down fragments of his dreams. He displays these in the shop window, perplexing customers and passers-by.
The other characters in the novel are clichés -sympathetic democrats and evil Nazis. Franz never really develops as a character - he is just as naive at the end as at the beginning as he commits a fruitless, symbolic act of resistance. Dr. Freud is forced to flee Vienna, the city he loves, for sanctuary in London. As he prepares to leave his apartment he spots a spider in the corner of his living room and expresses his despair that the spider can remain while he must leave.
"Warum um alles in der Welt darf der hierbleiben, während ich, der weltberühmte Begründer der Psychoanalyse, gehen muss!"
Such poignant moments are few and far between in Der Trafikant, which was made into a feature film in 2018 (I haven't seen). Der Trafikant was a good warm-up exercise for Robert Seethaler, and it is good to see the progress he has made as a writer. I look forward to reading his latest - Das Feld (2018).
BTW, the best first-hand account of the Anschluss I've read was in Carl Zuckmayer's fantastic memoir Als wär's ein Stück von mir.
Quelle: https://www.dieterwunderlich.de/Seethaler-trafikant.htm (c) Dieter Wunderlic
Quelle: https://www.dieterwunderlich.de/Seethaler-trafikant.htm (c) Dieter Wunderlich
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