Heinz Strunk was back this year on the Deutscher Buchpreis longlist with a short book about an old age love story.
In Memories of Heidelberg, Bertram and Isolde - thanks Gd but in my 20+ years in Germany I never met or heard about someone bearing such names - are spending time in the city. Both are seniors, no physical attraction is left between them and especially for Bertram he is slowly losing the control of some of his body functions. Mostly, they spend their time separately, except for the dinner time, where they often go to an Italian restaurant situated on a boat.
The back and forth of their daily contacts, with the 1968 hit of Peggy March, Memories of Heidelberg, in the background. As expected, the leitmotiv is a reminder of the good, youthful times, obviously gone for ever.
I had the chance to read all the books from the Deutscher Bucher list this year - more about it in the next months posts - but this book touched the lowest level for me. The writing is focused on the moment, describing scenes and emotions in detail but it doesn´t go too far neither in terms of story development or character development.
The ending is grotesque, but for me was the best moment in the book, waking me up from the long sleep of reading 150 pages leading to it.
Some books, and authors, are just not meant to be for me, and this is perfectly fine to acknowledge it.
Rating: 2.5 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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