As you read, the sense of empathy settles quietly within, without your noticing and Egger, though often a stranger within his own story, is not a stranger to you for long. And for our silent companionship, his unimposing wisdom is our gift. In Egger’s solitude, we are not made to feel like intruders, but rather to join with the quiet breath of the mountains that are his constant companions. We are blown through his snowy valley as quiet observers. An unstudied lesson in philosophy gently shown, not taught.
He limps through life as best he can, and his quiet, persistent trudging is honourable and life-affirming. “But each time the rumbling died away and the clear cries of the jackdaws could be heard again.” His many trials, though tragic, are without the solipsism of tragedy. Our guide, Egger, is a man of fortitude and quiet strength. You feel as if these are memories hewn by time to their most composite form memories whose accuracy encompasses all that is needed, all that is most affective. The infrequent dialogue is made the more potent by its scarcity and blunt truthfulness. There is a frankness and plainness to the words that creates a world without over-filling it. Set in the mid-twentieth century and told with beauty and tenderness, Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life is a story of man's relationship with an ancient landscape, of the value of solitude, of the arrival of the modern world, and above all, of the moments, great and small, that make us who we are. Neither the economy of language nor the physical coldness of the landscape do anything to dampen the warmth of feeling woven throughout this short novel – both bitter and sweet.
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