The Tobacconist

_The Tobacconist_ was part of a list of books ambassadors from various nations recommended reading before visiting their country. (The website with the list of books is easily accessible by any search if you're interested.) It was a tragic - although not wholly surprising - read. Set in Vienna just prior to the Anschluss (Nazi annexation of Austria), it is the tale of a young country boy who moves to the big city, finding work at a Tobacconist's shop, and befriending an ailing Sigmund Freud.The details of the city - its culture, its politics (like the south of Germany, Austria and especially Vienna, is very conservative), and the rhythm of life is vividly shown. The role of a tobacconist - and a newspaper kiosk - as a metaphor for the urbane, sophisticated life of Vienna was apt, its incompatibility with the intolerance and brutality of the time made for a tragic conclusion, although one that was neither suprising nor out of character for the city. Absolutely a spot-on recommendation by the ambassador.

I generally ignore bestsellers, but THE TOBACCONIST is an "international" bestseller, and Robert Seethaler has made quite a splash as a writer to watch. This book was published in German several years ago, and the English translation is about four years old now. I've read the Canadian edition.It's a little book, barely 200 pages, but it has both sweetness and depth, a rare combination. The sweetness is in young Austrian bumpkin Franz's coming of age, as he is tormented by his first 'love' and sexual awakening, under the able tutelage of Anezka, a voluptuous Bohemian tart with an endearing space between her teeth. (I thought of a very young Jim Harrison and his enduring crush on model-actress Lauren Hutton.) The depth lies in its setting, 1937'-38 Vienna, as the Nazis and the Gestapo begin to move in and establish themselves without a single shot fired. That and Franz's unlikely friendship with the aged Dr Sigmund Freud, who attempts to counsel the boy about women and love. "I suspect that when we talk about your love, what we really mean is your libido ... This is the force that drives people after a certain age. It causes as much joy as it does pain, and to put it in simple terms, with men, it is located in their trousers." Bingo! Franz gets this much. But at the same time, Freud also opines on current affairs, not so easy to understand. "Current world events are nothing but a tumour, an ulcer, a suppurating, stinking bubo that will soon burst and spill its disgusting contents over the whole of western civilization."Of course he is referring to the fascism, hate and wave of anti-Semitism that was beginning to consume Europe, but it also seems pretty relevant to today's situation, no? Funny how really good books are always relevant. That relevance carries over in Seethaler's depiction of the "Brown shirts" with swastika armbands who begin to fill the town - "They also had a strange light in their eyes. The light was sort of optimistic or hopeful or inspired, but essentially also dim-witted ..."As events unfold, the story becomes much darker. The shop front is defaced with pig's blood, and Franz's crippled boss is beaten and arrested by the Gestapo for selling to Jews, leaving Franz, formerly the apprentice, now the tobacconist. Dr Freud, under surveillance himself, is unable to help Franz, who is forced to do some growing up fast, and fashions his own form of revenge.Franz's maturation over the course of this hard year is further reflected in the correspondence between him and his widowed mother, cards and Ietters at first simple and comical, and then increasingly complex and moving, as the eighteen year-old tried to make sense of it all.History is made personal here. The phrase "what goes around comes around" kept cropping up in my mind as I read of Franz and Dr Freud. It's that inescapable relevance to today's headlines. And the writing here is simply beautiful, by the way. Seethaler deserves his success. Very highly recommended.- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

Hard to follow up "A Whole Life" which seemed to be a perfect novel. Same great writing but less interesting story that relies on events that have already been overly examined.

The storyline is very scattered with several pages that appear to be only filler. There is no reason for some of the pages. They are simply to lengthen the book.

A beautiful description of a person living around 1940 in Austria full of turmoil. A book with intense emotions described in a superb way. FO

So difficult to find! Great book, great price

Loved this book.

I really liked the story and it is well-written. Highly recommend.

I thought The Tobacconist was excellent. I was wary of it because it reflects closely in time and place some of my family's most harrowing history, meaning that if it were badly done I would hate it. In fact, it is exceptionally well done, and one of the best novels I have read about the onset of Nazism.Part of the reason it is so good is that although it is set in Vienna in 1937 and 1938 around the time of the Anschluss, the main story is of the coming of age of Franz, a young, naïve country boy who arrives in Vienna to take a job in a tobacconist's shop. Franz is a wonderful protagonist; he is innocent but intelligent, honest and thoughtful and he observes what is happening with the somewhat bemused eye of decency. He also forms a friendship with Sigmund Freud, who is a customer, with whom he discusses things, including the turmoil of his teenage heart, which is beautifully depicted. The political turmoil is a well-drawn backdrop to this for much of the book, and is all the more potently depicted for not being heavy-handedly in the foreground.Robert Seethaler creates a superb sense of time and place, often through the observation of minutiae (including the way things and people smell), and Franz's reflections, self-doubt and sometimes plain bewilderment in the face of both falling in love and of the rise of thuggery and vicious political control was very real to me. We also get little vignettes of things like the stolid, elderly postman who is uneasy about some of what is happening, but manages to put it aside because, well, it doesn't seem *that* bad, he isn't really affected personally and he needs to complete just a few more years trouble-free service for his pension. Again, an utterly convincing portrait of how a basically decent person can shut out and hence allow evil.I also like the observations which sometimes remain very pertinent today, like "The morning edition's truth is practically the evening edition's lie; though as far as memory's concerned it doesn't really make much difference. Because it's not usually the truth that people remember; it's just whatever's yelled loudly enough or printed big enough."This is a fairly short but brilliant book. It is superbly translated, so that all the author's insights into character, place and so on come over perfectly, and it is insightful, readable, rather uplifting in places as Franz's integrity shines through, and ultimately very moving. This is one to keep and re-read many times, I think. Very warmly recommended.

Franz, an unsophisticated 17 year old comes to Vienna to work in the tobacconist's shop belonging to his mother's old friend Otto Trsnyek. Otto has him reading the papers every day in between serving customers, and gradually with the political (often brutal) rumblings before the onset of war, and the complications of falling in love, Franz gains an awareness of the world which wakes him from his provincial naivety. I was wary at the introduction of Sigmund Freud as a customer at the shop, as real historical figures depicted in fiction don't always work well. In the end I thought the author carried off the acquaintance between the ageing, subdued Freud and the unworldly Franz in an interesting way. There is an elegiac air to this story which points to the price of keeping hope in times of encircling darkness.

This novel has that most ominous of beginnings: a violent thunderstorm that sweeps over the mountains, coupled with a death that signifies irreversible change in fortune for its protagonist, the seventeen-year-old, Franz. This is partly a coming of age story in which a young man must leave the idyllic surrounding of his home in the lake district of Austria, and make his way as an apprentice in the capital city of Vienna. He begins working for Otto, a First World War veteran with one leg, in his tobacconist shop where he sells newspapers, tobacco and cigars to an array of eccentric characters, including the professor, Sigmund Freud, with whom he strikes up an unlikely friendship. The early part of the book is taken up with Franz’s homesickness and his infatuation with a young woman who works as a stripper. His awkwardness and the realisation of his sexual feelings might all be very ordinary, but for the fact that these crucial years for Franz take place in the shadow of the Third Reich in the lead up to Hitler’s annexation of Austria. The details are subtly and chillingly woven into the narrative in an almost understated way. Customers in the tobacconist shop begin to say the words ‘Heil Hitler’ with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The sight of anti-Jewish graffiti becomes normalised, and Franz observes subtle differences in the way people begin to carry themselves, while others are afraid to speak their minds. What begins in the novel as political headlines that Franz reads in the newspapers concerning the future of Austria, soon becomes a stark reality once the Nazi party gains control. When the political consequences become all too real for his Jewish employer, Otto, Franz’s dreamy nature must undergo a radical change. The gathering pace of this novel and its poetic language work powerfully towards the story’s dramatic conclusion.

I loved the previous book by Robert Seethaler (A Whole Life) and The Tobacconist is excellent, too. A very unusual story which takes place just before the war in the 30s about a naive young man who arrives in Vienna from a small village in Austria, falls in love, gets heartbroken, meets Sigmund Freud and gets advice from him but it's not just a love story. The Nazi movement is rising in Austria and although for the most part of the book the young man remains detached from politics, he courageously chooses to act.

This is a deeply moving tale and powerful in its simplicity. We are gifted a tale that though it is set in a time of great evil, is radiant and moving.Though simple in its delivery, it contains devastatingly complex themes of the evil nature of nationalism, compassion in the face of evil, bravery in the face of cruelty. Seethaler has an intimate understanding of human nature and gives a voice to the lives of those caught up in events much bigger than they can hope to control. Humanity and compassion are his main themes and he writes with a style that draws you in and holds you captivated throughout.