The old king in his exile

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The old king in exile is a book by the Austrian writer Arno Geiger from 2011.

Main character is the last 83-year-old August Geiger, a father of four, grandfather of three girls and a former civil servant, who has 15 years of Alzheimer's - Dementia is ill. The author is August Geiger's second youngest son, the 40-year-old writer Arno Geiger, who has been intensively involved in the care and maintenance of his father for many years. It describes the coexistence with the lonely old man, which is characterized by the increasing loss of memory and skills and which is only bearable for everyone after the relatives have accepted the disease. The life story of August Geiger and the rapprochement between the son and his father are described in many flashbacks. The son experiences living together as enriching.

CV of the main character

August Geiger, born in 1926, grew up with nine siblings in the agricultural village of Wolfurt near the Austrian city of Bregenz . During the Second World War, at the age of 18, he was sent to the Eastern Front in February 1945; while in Soviet captivity, he became critically ill with dysentery . After four weeks in the Soviet prison hospital in Bratislava , he was released and reached his parents' house on foot in September 1945. He stayed in the village all his life, became a parish clerk, built a house and married at the age of 37. The couple had four children, but remained strangers, so that the 15-year-old wife separated from him shortly after his regular retirement. In his village he was well known, respected and loved by everyone.

Alzheimer's disease

The first signs of the disease appear a few years after retirement. For professional reasons, the son Arno lives with his father for several months a year. August's family refuses to accept their father's illness for a long time. Only after years of “wasting energy” do the relatives find “insight” into the illness, which “meant relief for everyone”. You give up the reproach against the father. The father can be as he is. The conflict becomes a togetherness. In everyday life there are "always new surprises ... and constant new challenges". "The only remaining place for togetherness that was worthwhile was the world as the father perceived it". All children, the separated wife and other relatives participate in the care, support and care of the old man. He can live in his house until he is a good 82 years old, in the end with nurses living there, then home admission is inevitable. In the home of his village he has long been known to the carers and roommates. The son visits him there often and thinks: “The environment in the nursing home seemed likeable and enriching to me . ... Most of the residents were bursting with life, in a very elementary way. "

Reviews

The book was received differently by the critics. Christopher Schmidt describes it as "sentimental". The father is "staged in the same way as ambitious parents do with their child prodigy. The son directs and gives the right keywords, and that is also a subliminal aggression. "Geiger had" plundered "his father.

For Felicitas von Lovenberg , “Arno Geiger's gesture [...] is a humble, modest, loving, grateful one.” She emphasizes: “The brutality and hopelessness of dementia are never denied.” However, the subject is not the complaint. The son gets involved with the father and “his perception of the world”, he comes close to him and experiences “moments of happiness and happiness”. The role of language is emphasized: "In general, the language of August Geiger is the secret heroine of this book."

Thomas Borchert mentions as a benefit for the reader: "One likes to read as a helping presentation for one's own experiences that he [the author] can accept the dementia inwardly and can experience being together with his father in a positive way under the increasingly difficult conditions."

The book was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair 2011 Prize (Category: Fiction ).

expenditure

  • Arno Geiger: The old king in his exile. Hanser, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23634-9 . / DTV, 2012, ISBN 978-3-423-14154-3 .
  • Le vieux roi en son exile: récit. Translation into French by Olivier Le Lay. Gallimard, Paris 2012.
  • De oude koning in zijn rijk. Translation into Dutch by W. Hansen. De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam 2012.
  • A száműzött öreg király. Translation into Hungarian by László Győri. Európa, Budapest 2013.
  • Audiobook version: The old king in his exile. Unabridged reading with Matthias Brandt . 4 CDs, 255 minutes running time, ISBN 978-3-86909-178-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arno Geiger: The old king in his exile. 2011, pp. 7, 25.
  2. ↑ Arno Geiger. The old king in his exile. Pp. 49, 117.
  3. ↑ Arno Geiger: The old king in his exile. P. 153.
  4. ↑ Christopher Schmidt: The old king in his exile. Wrong idyll. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 14, 2011.
  5. ↑ Felicitas von Lovenberg: The old king in his exile. When someone knows nothing and yet understands everything. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 4, 2011.
  6. ↑ Thomas Borchert: The old king in his exile. Arno Geiger writes about his father with dementia. Stern.de February 25, 2011.
  7. ↑ Archive 2011 | Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair -. Retrieved January 2, 2019 .