Baumgartner

Baumgartner is a moving novel about grief, old age, and memories, which also serves as a character study of its protagonist. The novel has an episodic structure, recounting the pasts of several characters in flashbacks, interconnected by the train of thoughts of an ageing philosophy professor who is writing a book on human consciousness. The novel is narrated in the third person in a voice that is warm but never bothers to emotionally attach to the narrative. The result is a story that connects to its readers and simultaneously leaves enough space for them to have a detached assessment of it.